Though Pakistan continues to face a number of challenges, in its struggle for democracy it is, perhaps, a lesson for other nascent democracies. By tabling a package of constitutional reforms that will repeal several aberrations adopted under dictatorships in the 1980s and 1990s, the democratic government of Pakistan has achieved a landmark in democracy and brought hope to people around the world.

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Just as Pakistan’s first democratically elected government in decades was on the brink of undoing a number of power grabs by past military dictators, a wrench has been thrown in the works by an opposition politician and party leader. Mr. Nawaz Sharif, head of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party (PML-N) is holding up passage of a package of constitutional reforms that would restore proper checks and balances on power.

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Today's Washingon Post editorial highlights candidate reactions to the assasination of Benazir Bhutto and says that on this international emergency,:

One candidate, Democrat John Edwards, passed with flying colors.

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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.

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I awoke to the news that, as my father put it, "they assassinated Bhutto last night."

From The AP:

Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a suicide attack that also killed at least 20 others at a campaign rally, aides said.

The death of the 54-year-old charismatic former prime minister threw the campaign for the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections into chaos and created fears of mass protests and violence across the nuclear-armed nation, an important U.S. ally in the war on terrorism.

The attacker struck just minutes after Bhutto addressed thousands of supporters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, 8 miles south of Islamabad. She was shot in the neck and chest by the attacker, who then blew himself up, said Rehman Malik, Bhutto's security adviser.

Fox News (the preferred news network in my parents' house) is reporting that Pakistanis are gathering on the streets throughout the country marching and chanting that Musharraf is to blame (an opinion shared, per TPM, by longtime Bhutto adviser and confidante, Husain Haqqani.) In the meantime the State Department has issued a statement insisting that Musharraf was powerless to stop the attack.

As we consider the various ramifications of Bhutto's assasination, we can't help but look locally at how it will impact our own elections here at home as terrorism and the prospect of an unstable nuclear armed Middle Eastern country returns to the headlines and pushes the election off of cable news probably for the entire day. On this topic, although I am loath to admit it, Carl Cameron said what I was thinking:

The experience, the resume, the leadership qualities, the steadiness...of the candidates on both sides is going to be put under a whole new microscope. Hillary Clinton has for months been suggesting that Barack Obama is naive and inexperienced when it comes to international affairs and foreign policy. On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani has based his entire candidacy on his reputation for his post-9/11 leadership as mayor of New York. John McCain has been saying for months that he is the onjly candidate with adequate international and foreign policy experience to be commander in chief in war time.[...]

This is precisely the type of international moment that echoes loudly on our domestic presidential campaign trail as both parties look to the candidate they would pick to lead their party and the nation.

Indeed Rudy Giuliani was the first out of the gate with a statement, invoking his own formulation "The terrorists' war on us." We can no doubt expect this event to be cited in statements and speeches all day today as the candidates seek to further shore up their international affairs credentials and, let's face it, it may be the only way they make the news today.

Update [2007-12-27 12:23:44 by Todd Beeton]:I'm sorry but Bhutto's assassination was a political event whether people like it or not; it's much larger than the tragic death of Bhutto and the throngs of supporters who were killed as well, this is earth-shaking, both abroad and at home. There is a parliamentary election in Pakistan on January 8th, which Bhutto's death clearly throws into chaos; is it distasteful to speak of that election as well? And what arbitrary date does it suddenly become OK to discuss the political ramifications of this event? As much as people like to belittle talk of who is going to win the primaries over the next few weeks as trivial "horserace" coverage, there are few issues more crucial to the future of our world than who the next president of the United States is. The extent to which this event informs that decision, I see it as absolutely relevant to the discussion.

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