The Nov. 16 issue of the New Yorker hasn’t yet slipped under my door and the local Pakistani papers are already discussing the latest Sy Hersh piece with the ardor and candor of Lahore housewives trading Lollywood gossip.

Dawn, the respected English daily, features a photograph of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her Oct. visit to Pakistan on its edit page. Below the shot of a blonde, green-suited Clinton, the editorial kicks off with an anti-feminist salvo: “There is an Alice in Wonderland quality to America’s dealings with Pakistan.”

Here we go again. The latest Pakistani pillory Hillary show.

The last time she was in town, Clinton took a whiplashing for “Kerry-Lugar” or “KLB” as the Pakistani chattering classes simply put it.  

For the uninitiated, “Kerry-Lugar” refers to a bill, authored by US Senators John Kerry (Democrat) and Richard Lugar (Republican).

A US bill is not – and should not be – dinner table conversation. But in Pakistan, the bazaars are buzzing with anti-KLB discourse of characteristically overwrought South Asian dimensions. Some call it the “Kerry Looter Bill” and it is being viewed as concrete proof of every conceivable anti-US conspiracy.

So, what really is KLB trying to achieve? Answer: To put the focus on economic development in an impoverished, economically shattered nuclear-armed nation.

Sound innocuous, so how are they aiming to achieve this? Answer: By tripling US non-military aid to Pakistan, making it the first time in US-Pakistani relations that Washington will be giving so much money ($1.5 billion a year) to a civilian government.

So what’s the clincher? The Americans want to see their money properly spent. So the bill includes conditions that Pakistan remain a democracy and that the civilian government maintains control over the military.

Obviously, the Pakistani military is not pleased. It has ruled Pakistan for most of its post-colonial history, it has dictated the nation’s disastrous foreign policy on its eastern and western borders, and has such vast business interests in the public and private sectors that Pakistani refer to the Military Inc. simply as "Milbus" (pronounced "milbiz").

No surprises here. But what surprises me though is the anti-KLB media outrage and the level of vitriol the media has pumped into Pakistan’s public opinion. And I’m not talking about the Islamists, I’m talking about the Pakistani elites and intellectuals who should know better.

In an interview with the BBC while Clinton was in town, Hamid Gul, top presenter of the independent, wildly popular Geo TV had this to say:  “It would be very easy for me to be the darling of Washington, but then I will become the villain for my viewers and the common people in Pakistan."

Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan’s premier journalist, has documented the military’s massive public relations campaign, getting TV talk-show hosts and journalists to whip up public opposition to the bill.

You would expect Dawn, the country’s oldest and most prestigious English daily founded by the founder of the nation, to fare better. But no, there they are in print, the military PR machine’s talking points: America’s true goal is to destroy the Pakistani nuclear complex.

This coming from a country that has resisted any international questioning of AQ Khan, Pakistan’s infamous nuclear proliferator and the military’s complicity in Khan’s nuclear dealings with Libya, Iran and North Korea is rich.