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No? It ain't over until it's over? He may yet salvage his lame-duck presidency? Miracles do happen? Who are we kidding. President Zardari will either be plain ol' Asif Zardari long before his term is officially set to end or he will be President Zardari sans the powers that attracted him to the office in the first place.

That the president's free fall is largely of his own making is doubly satisfying to his enemies. But the rise and all-but-certain fall of Zardari raises the same troubling question that haunted the country in the "�90s, the "�70s and the "�50s: can our politicians ever make it work?

There are so many cautionary tales, so few uplifting stories in this wretched place with its wretched politics and its wretched history. Zardari was never one of the...