Benazir Bhutto

HarperCollins has pushed up the publication date for Benazir Bhutto's book Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West by two months, in the wake of the former Pakistani prime minister's assassination on Dec. 27, reports The New York Times.

According to Publisher's Weekly, which first reported HarperCollins' intention to move the publication date, Bhutto had finished the manuscript for the book a week before she was killed.

According to an announcement from HarperCollins, Reconciliation will come with a "short afterword" by Bhutto's husband and children written after her death.

As the bromides and bunkum of primary season lurch into caucus-eve overdrive in Iowa, the rest of the world has upstaged the election-addled news cycle. A new Osama bin Laden video, a Colombian hostage crisis and—most of all—the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto have made weary onlookers newly aware that there will be a long, grave to-do list awaiting whichever candidate prevails in the cartoonish 2008 presidential race.

Bhutto’s death marks the most sobering setback for the U.S.  read more »

CNN likes to say that it's the network people turn to when major world news events occur.  And one reason why there may be some truth to that boast was revealed in the wake of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto last week.

CNN was the only American network that had a full-time producer, Mohsin Naqvi, at the site of the rally where Ms. Bhutto was killed Thursday, reports The New York Times.  Mr. Naqvi had spoken to Ms. Bhutto earlier that day, and reported for CNN by phone throughout the day. By contrast, Fox and MSNBC were forced to rely on phone reports from freelance journalists in the country.   read more »

Hillary Clinton calls for an international investigation into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in an interview she taped for this afternoon's Situation Room on CNN, according to her campaign.

Her push for an international investigation reflects a sentiment expressed yesterday by Daniel Markey, a Pakistan expert at the Council on Foreign Relaitons, who said, "I have zero confidence that the Pakistani government will get to the bottom of this."

Last night, Dan Rather emerged from the cable news ether to speak at length with CNN's Wolf Blitzer about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the late former prime minister of Pakistan.

Throughout the segment, CNN played clips of Mr. Rather's recent interview with Ms. Bhutto for his show on HDNet (which you can watch above), and Mr. Blitzer peppered the Category 5 Newsman with questions about her qualities as a leader.

"She saw, perhaps better than most, the depth of the feeling of radical Islamic terrorists and she wanted to do something about it," said Mr. Rather. "And that was her vision. That's the reason she went back, knowing that she was in real peril when she went back."  read more »

Les Gelb, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, thinks that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto is hugely significant for American national security, but not for domestic politics.

"It really is a big deal," said Gelb in a telephone interview. "I think it is a bigger deal, more dangerous for us than Iraq or Afghanistan because she [Bhutto] represented really the best chance that Pakistan had, and we had, of putting together a coalition government with the majority of Pakistani people against the extremists, and of a coalition government that had a chance of working."

"The fact of the matter is that if Pakistan goes south," he said, "it's far more dangerous for us than Iraq or Afghanistan."

More after the jump.  read more »

Along with many of the presidential candidates, non-candidate Michael Bloomberg has just released a statement on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto:

“Today all New Yorkers, including the more than 100,000 who can trace their heritage to Pakistan, are saddened to learn about the assassination of Pakistan’s Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Hers was a voice for democracy, and the silencing of it – by such brutal means – is a shock to us all. Ms. Bhutto’s death – and the deaths of the many other Pakistanis who were killed today simply for expressing their views – is a great loss for friends of democracy and for everyone who is united in the fight against terror. It’s also a grim reminder that many people consider the freedoms we cherish a threat. The perpetrators of this violent act must be brought to justice, and it is my hope that President Musharraf will follow through on free and fair elections in January as a testament to Ms. Bhutto’s legacy.”  read more »