For the second time in this election cycle, Pakistan has forced its way onto the front page with some shocking news – looks like Musharraf is out, probably sooner rather than later.

We’re going to hear a lot of “it’s Bush’s fault” on this from the Democrats, and I’ve heard from some non-lefty foreign policy wonks that the Bush foreign policy has put an awful lot of faith in Musharraf. But what realistic options did the U.S. have? If we hear candidates saying, “we need to reach out to and develop pro-American, pro-democracy voices in Pakistan,” we ought to say, “okay, how?”

The parties that won are described as neither explicitly pro-American nor explicitly anti-American.

This may be a useful lesson in the thinking of the candidates. After Bhutto’s assassination, Huckabee made a few minor errors, but even worse was the Obama campaign’s inferring that Hillary’s vote for the Iraq war was somehow, through the transitive property, responsible. (Even worse was the discussion in U.S. circles that somehow American policy can stop a determined jihadi lunatic from shooting or blowing himself up near a Pakistani figure who insists on traveling through crowds of strangers.)