Cross-posted from The Wayward Episcopalian.

I woke up on the west cost this morning to the horrifying news that Pakistan's Benzair Bhutto has been assassinated - martyred by bullet at a rally in Rawalpindi. Chaos has erupted across Pakistan, as it did across the US when Martin Luther King was killed. Bhutto was the  former prime minister of Pakistan (the first woman to hold the job) who recently returned to the country after an eight year exile. Like President Musharraf, she is a moderate, but she stands for calm and prosperity in a way that he does not. She had hoped to be elected to a third term as prime minister in next month's elections. Her death, and the deaths of 20 other people at her rally, is shocking and saddening. This must feel to many Pakistanis the way Robert Kennedy's death felt to many Americans. It could signal the end of hope.

This diary will briefly explore the crisis in Pakistan, then explain why Joe Biden is clearly the best, and perhaps only, Democratic candidate for president fit to lead on this issue. I hate to be so crassly political about murder, but when the stakes are so high, I feel we don't have much choice.

There's more...