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Both conservatives and progressives are criticizing the Bush administration for its continued support of Pakistan's embattled president, Pervez Musharraf, and the same could be directed at Republican presidential candidate, John McCain.

Cato Institute advises the Bush administration to stop the personal touch.

Politically, the United States will have to branch out to civilian leaders other than Musharraf in order to maintain some semblance of political stability. Militarily, to prevent the army's gradual erosion, the United States must continue giving aid to Islamabad with strict oversight and the assurance that such funding is being used against insurgents and not against long-time rival India.

The Center for American Progress is slightly less diplomatic.

The Bush administration continues to demonstrate a shocking tone deafness and incompetence when it comes to U.S. policy toward Pakistan. Just recently, the White House press secretary stated that it was too early to tell whether elections had weakened Musharraf's power. In even more disturbing remarks, she continued: "I think what President Musharraf has shown is an ability to provide for the country a chance to be confident in their government."

Furthermore, sources in Islamabad tell us that the administration is asking the PPP to explore forming a coalition government with PML-Q rather than to reach out to former prime minister Sharif's PML-N. In short, the Bush administration may be trying to keep Musharraf in the game and sideline Sharif. The Bush administration has been nervous about Sharif because of his historical closeness to the religious parties in Pakistan, yet sidelining the PML-N could be potentially destabilizing for Pakistan as it controls the heartland of Pakistan through control of the Provincial Assembly in Punjab.

The Bush administration needs to let Pakistan's political parties do their own parliamentary horse-trading without U.S. pressure, but we worry that the administration has refused to learn the lessons of its failed policies in Pakistan. Its efforts to negotiate a deal between President Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto prior to her assassination served to delegitimize her for many Pakistanis, making her a greater target for anti-American extremists in Pakistan.

The administration's consistent over-reliance on President Musharraf emboldened an authoritarian figure who has weakened the nation's independent judiciary and media, making the United States appear to be a force against democracy and the Pakistani people. What's more, U.S. policy has done little to counter the strengthening militant groups in Pakistan. If anything, the administration's ham-handed policies have only inflamed a fragile political and security environment in the country.

Meanwhile, Juan Cole warns that a McCain administration will do no better with Pakistan (as well as defending Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama).

And, let's just consider the shaky dictator Pervez Musharraf, who just suffered a sharp rebuke from the Pakistani electorate, as I wrote about today in Salon.com. McCain appears never to have met a rightwing dictator he didn't like. McCain defends the dictator. Here is what McCain said about Musharraf late last December:

"Prior to Musharraf, Pakistan was a failed state," McCain said. "They had corrupt governments and they would rotate back and forth and there was corruption, and Musharraf basically restored order. So you're going to hear a lot of criticism about Musharraf that he hasn't done everything we wanted him to do, but he did agree to step down as head of the military and he did get the elections."

There's much more in this blog, so make it a priority!

Giving of its largesse with no apparent reward just is not American:

The Bush administration has to rethink more than just its unhealthy and destructive enabling of Musharraf. It also must take a hard look at the billions it is funneling to Pakistan's military. That money is supposed to finance the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But Washington hasn't kept a close watch, and much of it has gone to projects that interested Musharraf and the Pakistani Army more, like building weapons systems aimed at America's ally, India. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda and the Taliban continued, and continue, to make alarming gains.

The United States cannot afford to have Pakistan unravel any further. The lesson of the last six years is that authoritarian leaders - even ones backed with billions in American aid - don't make reliable allies, and they can't guarantee security.

American policy must be directed at building a strong democracy in Pakistan that has the respect and the support of its own citizens and the will and the means to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Pakistan is a nation of 165 million people. The days of Washington mortgaging its interests there to one or two individuals must finally come to an end.

After Benazir Bhutto (IHT)

But, the assassinations of affluent Muslim women have always had a substantial effect on American politicians and the public.

It's shameful to admit, but no American politician can handle the Bhutto assassination well. And, neither can some pundits. Yet Aaron Mannes can argue for a real investigation into Bhutto's assassin. This simple request is necessary because the opinions about Bhutto's involuntary death (and, right now that seems to be the limits of any conclusion based on facts) are disputed by the some of the same people arguing over the culprit and the consequences. TPM also weighs in with expert opinion.

After sifting through bandwidth for two days, I've compiled some informative articles (in order of merit). Left Coaster gets the prize for irrelevance and for bowing to the logical error of authority: who cares what the establishment opinion is? Anatol Lieven gets the other prize for his balanced, yet provocative essay concluding, that "Pakistan's mainstream politicians should now be able to see that if they do not work together, many of them will be assassinated separately." The NY Times' John F. Burns characterizes Benazir Bhutto as a "woman of complex and often contradictory instincts". Joshua Foust concludes, in a well-linked blog post with updates, that "it is unclear what the U.S.'s stance should be. It really does seem to be caught flat-footed here, unless there was some other politician waiting in the wings no one knew about." Talking dog considers prayer. Finally, the Online Newshour does its usual excellent job presenting interviews facts, and opinions surrounding Bhutto's assassination. That concludes the A-list.

Also kudos go to Thomas P.M. Barnett and Matthew Yglesias for contributing valuable, complementary opinions that jive with the better-prepared essays above. What follows rounds out the long list of required reading. After a few days, when more details arise, I think opinions will start to diverge from the respectful obituaries they are now. I'm not getting into the issue of who Bhutto's assassin was, since I suspect partisanship will blur complicity to a fine margin of error sometime right after most people stop caring about the incident. And, even if the assassin confesses online, I doubt that media event would distract partisans from pursuing their own conspiracy theories about the motives.

1. But, I'm wary of following Zbigniew Brzezinski, for philosophical and historical reasons. I'm not sure respecting the sovereignty of Pakistan is useful now that the ISI has turned upon its own children and it's assistance in Afghanistan has always been suspect.

2. Taylor Marsh ranges from primary politics in the US to grander IR themes.

3. Swaraaj Chauhan performs his own investigation into Bhutto's assassin.

4. Greg Laden has his own secondhand account providing color about Bhutto's assassination.

5. Bill Roggio provides another serviceable report on al-Qaeda's complicity in Bhutto's assassination.

6. Eli Lake presents evidence for a troubling conclusion of collusion between the ISI and al-Qaeda.

7. Bill Scher presents as balanced an account of the "Blame Washington" meme as is expected or possible.

Finally, Pakistan is burning.