Islamabad Hotel Bombing

The huge blast that wiped out the Marriott in Islamabad Saturday must have been horrific--a crater 25 feet deep and 40 feet wide is a pretty big hole. The two candidates have reacted and below is a screen shot from the WaPo story, including a rather morbid coincidence of having a rotating advertisement for Marriott displayed on the right sidebar (around 11:30pm central):



Hopefully they'll remove it. As to the statements, here's the CNN version. Perhaps they're not completely in the tank for Obama after all:

Both U.S. presidential nominees condemned the attack.

"Today's attack demonstrates the grave and urgent threat that al Qaeda and its affiliates pose to the United States, to Pakistan and to the security of all nations," Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama said.

It was unclear on what he was basing his conclusion that al Qaeda or its affiliates were involved.

GOP candidate Sen. John McCain called the attack "an outrageous act of violence."

"While no organization has yet taken responsibility for this act, it is well known that Pakistan faces an enduring threat from violent Islamic extremism.

Even Bush didn't directly blame al-Qaeda, mentioning only "violent extremism" in his remarks (BTW, how long before the 9/11 nutbars and certain members of Congress start blaming him for the attack? Days? Hours?).

Politics aside this is clearly a decision point for Pakistan (if indeed this wasn't some kind of freaky gas explosion). The locals were already restless due to our recent cross-border incursion making a public backlash possible, especially if more attacks occur. Right now the new president is standing firm. They are also in the process of building new reactors.