The Dish

That was my hunch. Dickerson and Weigel agree on the domestic beneficiary of the news. Meanwhile, Clinton manages to spin again. It really is always about her, isn’t it?

Hitch doesn’t buy the idea that Musharraf was behind the assassination:

Who knows who did this deed? It is grotesque, of course, that the murder should have occurred in Rawalpindi, the garrison town of the Pakistani military elite and the site of Flashman’s Hotel. It is as if she had been slain on a visit to West Point or Quantico. But it’s hard to construct any cui bono analysis on which Gen. Pervez Musharraf is the beneficiary of her death. The likeliest culprit is the al-Qaida/Taliban axis, perhaps with some assistance from its many covert and not-so-covert sympathizers in the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence. These were the people at whom she had been pointing the finger since the huge bomb that devastated her welcome-home motorcade on Oct. 18.

Anonymous Liberal makes an interesting case for Democrats to back Obama:

If Hillary Clinton is the nominee, I suspect that the dominant media narrative will be the dynastic element of the election (Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton). I suspect the media dynamic will be very similar to campaign 2000, where press coverage was overwhelming tilted in favor of the Republican candidate. If Obama is the nominee, however, I suspect that the dominant media narrative will be the historic nature of the election. Coverage will revolve around America’s willingness to take a giant leap forward as a country and elect its first black president. And I think the mainstream press corps–who are political junkies at heart–will be rooting for that outcome, in much the same way sports fans rooted for the Red Sox in 2004. They wanted to see history being made. The Republican candidate, whoever it turns out to be, will have to try very hard not to be seen a merely a footnote to history.

It seems absurd to think of the domestic campaign ramifications, but my gut tells me this helps McCain. If you look at the GOP field and you ask yourself who would you want in the White House right now, McCain leaps out at you as the one with the experience and the judgment to deal with this. On the Democratic side, it’s not so obvious, since Clinton’s "experience" is much less than meets the eye. But it helps her nonetheless. Novak, meanwhile, is touting McCain:

Sen. John McCain, given up for dead a few weeks ago as he ran a cash-starved, disorganized campaign, today is viewed by canny Republican professionals as the best bet to win the party’s presidential nomination. What’s more, they consider him their most realistic prospect to buck the overall Democratic tide and win the general election. Indeed, if Mike Huckabee holds on to actually win the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, the road forward could be clear for McCain.

RedState’s Erick chimes in here.

(Photo: Alex Wong/Getty.)

We can and should think now of the political and military ramifications of the Bhutto assassination, but it is also the murder of yet another member of Nusrat Bhutto’s family. Adil Nijam remarks:

At a human level this is a tragedy like no other. Only a few days ago I was mentioning to someone that the single most tragic person in all of Pakistan – maybe all the world – is Nusrat Bhutto. Benazir’s mother. Think about it. Her husband, killed. One son poisoned. Another son assasinated. One daughter dead possibly of drug overdose. Another daughter rises to be Prime Minister twice, but jailed, exiled, and finally gunned down.

Today, in shock, I can think only of Benazir Bhutto the human being. Tomorrow, maybe, I will think of politics.

Other Pakistani bloggers react here.

"If it means sacrificing our lives, if it means sacrificing our liberties to save Pakistan, then we are prepared to risk our lives and we are prepared to risk our liberties, but we are not prepared to surrender our great nation to the militants," – Benazir Bhutto.

Lose-lose-win for Musharraf? He may well now extend emergency rule, but at what cost? DJ Drummond:

The government of President Musharraf is in a state of chaos. At best, he will be harshly blamed for not protecting Bhutto (there was an earlier attempt to kill Bhutto in October which left 140 dead, but security for Bhutto was not improved), and at present his possible complicity in the murder is widely suspected and in some places assumed. There has as yet been no official statement from U.S. officials; it must be presumed that the assassination has pre-empted normal business.

Bhutto was not perfect by any means: corrupt and self-serving. But given all the alternatives, it’s a crushing blow:

Her personal failing undermined, but did not eradicate, the principles she stood for within Pakistan, which have been characterized by Brookings scholar Stephen Cohen as "progressive social and economic policies; accommodation with India; good relations with all of the major powers (including the United States); gender empowerment; and a commitment to parliamentary democracy and a free press."

In short, Cohen’s view was that a Bhutto election was the foundation necessary for the country to address those who would tear it apart into further spiraling violence.

Today, Pakistan lurches one step closer towards that frightening outcome. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto, like too many other assassinations before it, has just changed history, and not for the better.

Blake Hounshell expresses my own response thus:

I’m in shock, and yet not altogether surprised.

What we are witnessing in the Islamic world is something we should learn to be somewhat reticent about. There is so much we do not know – and what we do know suggests a period of extreme and dangerous instability we will have only limited capacity to affect, if at all. A Bhutto deal with Musharraf meant a rational, sane option for Pakistan to Western diplomatic minds. But this world is a darker, more irrational place than we know. And these convulsions will surely continue. It may be that our attempt to fix the situation has only made it worse. Which would not be the first time, of course.

(Photo: John Moore/Getty.)