Benazir Bhutto

I am dumbstruck and dismayed.

Long, long ago — seemingly in another life — I met and photographed Benazir Bhutto. She was a young woman then (as was I), but she had already been Prime Minister of her country.

She was amazingly charismatic, eloquent, and ferociously intelligent. She seemed like a beacon of hope, especially for women, in a region that had suffered tremendously.

I have not followed the controversy surrounding her political career, so I can't speak to that. But I admire her courage in returning to Pakistan in the face of serious personal threat. And I mourn the brutal destruction of a person who carried such potential to contribute to the greater good.

[Update: For some grim photos and an eyewitness account, go here; this is what political violence does.]