how long can a story be considered ‘Breaking’ before it just becomes regular news?

To borrow from Jon Stewart, probably as long as it takes for the brink of war to just become war.

I don’t pretend to know a lot about Benazir Bhutto (and honestly, before this year I probably couldn’t even tell you who she was), but I do know that for a lot of people she was a symbol of democracy and peace for a lot of Pakistanis then and now, in a time where democracy and peace are in short supply. And I think if we’ve learned anything from religion, the military, sporting events and history in general it’s that symbols are important to people. Symbols, when well-presented, inspire people and action in a way that few things can.

In a way, Bhutto’s death preserves her symbolism for an eternity, but for the immediate future it seriously limits the possibility of getting Musharraf — who has offered very little by way of showing he actually cares about the people of Pakistan over his own lust for power — out of office. The only real contender now is Sharif, and I was under the impression that those who were against Musharraf were fairly equally divided among Bhutto and Sharif. My fear is that in a country where people actually thought boycotting an election was a good way to go, all the Bhutto supporters will skip the elections (assuming they actually happen) and nothing will change.

But then, that’d be about par for the course, wouldn’t it?