Yesterday we heard statements from the presidential candidates on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan. Today, the major newspapers around the country have weighed in, and here are the varying takes on the tragedy:

"Elections...and a restored democracy remain the best way for the centrist majority in Pakistan to rally against the forces of extremism that yesterday realized a great, though despicable, victory" (Washington Post).

"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" (New York Times).

Bhutto "wasn't just the leader of her party, the Pakistan People's Party. She was the PPP. She leaves no obvious political heir. With her death, the most progressive voice in Pakistani politics is gone" (Chicago Tribune).

Bhutto's assassination "provided a stark reminder that, despite the improved military situation in Iraq, the future of the War on Terror remains a critical, if not overriding, issue facing the US electorate." (New York Post)

The assassination is a "serious blow to President Pervez Musharraf. ...it denies him a counterpart from the democratic side of Pakistani politics with whom he can do business" (Baltimore Sun).

"Bhutto's murder is a desolating reminder that the people of Pakistan have not had the government they deserve or the leaders they need" (Boston Globe).

"Also a casualty was the Bush administration's foreign policy, which had placed its hopes for stability in Pakistan on a political marriage of convenience between Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf" (Philadelphia Inquirer).

Bhutto "is dead. And with her may also go the world's hopes for stability in Pakistan" (San Francisco Chronicle).

Bhutto's "assassination threatens to set in motion a chain of events whose end could be any of a number of very grim scenarios" (Washington Times).

It "is likely to prompt calls for a wholesale review of U.S. policy toward a country crucial to regional stability and the war on terrorism. Such a review is overdue" (Dallas Morning News).

"Her murder reinforces the notion of Pakistan as it exists now, a test between the raw power of the state versus a swirling mass of insurgent groups and terrorists" (Seattle Times).