Benazir Bhutto could have stayed in the shadows and lived a long, comfortable life. Instead, she took her life in her hands.

She stood up. And she stood out.

She not only showed her face when a lot of men wanted it covered, but she made sure she had makeup on it. She was a powerful woman in a man's world. And even years after leaving office, she was gaining strength. For many, she -- and not the grim, bespectacled Gen. Pervez Musharraf -- was the face of Pakistan.

For these and other reasons, it may have been only a matter of time before she was murdered, as she was on Thursday.

Indeed, they tried to get her in October too.

It was too much to take for some men -- the re-emergence of the Islamic world's first female prime minister, and at a time when woman-hating Islamic radicalism was on the move.

Yet, her murder isn't just about misogyny. Bhutto represented not only women's liberation, but freedom and democracy to a Pakistani people increasingly weary of their military dictatorship.

Her murder is also about a culture of death that not only ignores the collateral damage of innocent lives, but seems to revel in it. It wasn't enough to kill Bhutto with a bullet. All those around her had to be targets as well.

Nor does her killing occur in a vacuum. Political assassination is still far too much a part of the landscape in that neighborhood of the world. Bhutto's own prime minister father was executed after his ouster via a military coup. The elder Bhutto himself had been convicted of conspiring in the murder of a political opponent. Both of Benazir Bhutto's brothers also were murdered.

She once wrote of her country that "my life mirrors its turbulence, its tragedies and its triumphs." Of her up-and-down political life, which included exile until this past October, she wrote, "I didn't choose this life, it chose me."

Visiting her father's grave, she later wrote, "At that moment I pledged to myself that I would not rest until democracy had returned to Pakistan."

Now, others must take up the cause. "I assure you that I will fight your war from now on," Bhutto's chief rival in the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections, Nawaz Sharif, told her supporters.

The Pakistan People's Party her father founded had been surging of late, and was considered the chief threat to Musharraf's parliamentary supporters.

The West may have its faults and a dangerous dependence on decadence, but at least our leaders generally yield to rivals, and to the public will, without needing to be carried out in a box.

Sadly, Benazir Bhutto represented Pakistan's best hope for such a civilized succession -- if not to her, then to someone else equally representative of hope and freedom.

We fear for our friends in Pakistan, and we mourn with our many fellow Americans who hail from that great nation of good and proper people. The days and months and even years ahead will be perilous. May God be with them.