Opinion: Pakistani President Zardari gushes over Sarah Palin

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Sarah Palin’s meeting in New York this morning with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari — part of her crash course in foreign affairs — began innocuously enough.

‘So nice to meet you,’ she told him, according to the pool report filed by CNN, and he responded in kind.

Simple, civil salutations. But Zardari soon steered the conversation in a direction that would make Campbell Brown, the CNN anchor who Tuesday called John McCain’s campaign aides sexist, cringe and cry chauvinism. Here is the exchange:

ZARDARI: “You are even more gorgeous than you are on the [inaudible].”

PALIN: “You are so nice. Thank you.”

ZARDARI: “Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you.”

[A Zardari handler tells the two to shake hands again for the cameras.]

PALIN: “I’m supposed to pose again.”

ZARDARI: “If he’s insisting, I might hug.”

At that point, the pool reporter was escorted from the room.

— Kate Linthicum