While her campaign spent much of the last two days seizing on an Obama aide’s comments linking her Iraq vote to the Bhutto assassination, Senator Clinton’s own remarks on Pakistan evolved from Thursday to Friday –  moving from personal remembrances of her meetings with the ex-Pakistani Prime Minister to an indictment of the Bush administration.

In Story City, IA, Clinton said Bhutto’s death “puts a very bright spotlight both on President Musharraf and the leadership of Pakistan, the business elite, the feudal landlords, the military leadership, as well as the failed policies of President Bush.”

“Even after President Musharraf shut down the independent judiciary, suppressed a free press, President Bush was saying he was still a reliable ally. Well the facts are different than that,” she said. “He has failed on two counts, trying to move Pakistan towards a stable democracy, which is what I believe is required, and waging the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban and their allies.”

While Pakistan has a history of instability, she said, “it is also clear the Bush administration policy of giving Musharraf a blank check has failed”

Recalling her last visit to the region, after which she called on the White House to send a presidential envoy to ease tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Clinton said “Like so much else when dealing with the Bush administration, the answer was no, we’re going to do what we’re going to do.”

She added “I hope in the next year President Bush is still in office he will change direction.”
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Asked about top Obama adviser David Axelrod’s insinuation that her Iraq vote in 2002 may have had something to do with Benazir Bhutto’s assassination by distracting attention from the fight against al Qaeda, Hillary Clinton declined to respond — telling CNN, “I really regret that anybody would try to politicize this tragedy.”

But her surrogates aren’t biting their tongues. In a written statement,  former Supreme Allied Commander and ex-presidential candidate Wesley Clark says “This is a time for leadership, not politics. Senator Obama’s campaign seems to believe that Senator Clinton’s actions led to the tragic events in Pakistan. This is an incredible and insulting charge. It politicizes a tragic event of enormous strategic consequence to the United States and the world, and it has no place in this campaign.”

The Clinton campaign is walking a fine line in dealing with the Bhutto assassination; it’s widely seen as politically helpful, since it reminds caucus goers of her foreign policy experience and strength against extremists. But she has to be careful not be seen as exploiting Bhutto’s death and her personal relationship with the former PM by playing her hand too aggressively.

Axelrod’s comments allow her to accuse Obama of being exploitative, and still keep the story (and her foreign policy credentials) in the news for another day.

Standing before a crowd of Iowa caucusgoers in Decorah on Thursday, John Edwards remembered former Pakistani Prime Minster, Benazir Bhutto—who once described her country’s struggle to achieve democracy as “a path baptized in blood.”

For Bhutto, those words served to foreshadow her death by an assassin’s bullet today at a rally in Rawalpindi.

Moments before making his appearance, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards spoke with Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf, regarding Bhutto’s assassination.

“I spoke to President Musharraf a few minutes ago and I urged him to continue the democratization process because of how important it is to the Pakistani people and how important it is to his country,” Mr. Edwards told the crowd.

“I also urged him to allow international investigators into Pakistan so that, for the rest of the world, there can be credibility in determining what the facts were and what actually happened,” he said.

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Senator Clinton responded to the death of fmr Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Lawton, Iowa — saying “I grieve for her family, particularly her two children, and I grieve for the people of Pakistan who deserve to have an opportunity to vote for leaders of their choosing.”

“If there is any opportunity for the government and people of Pakistan to respond to this tragedy appropriately, it would be to move more steadfastly and determinedly toward democracy,” she said. “She has given her life for that hope, and I know that the people of our country stand in solidarity with those who believe as we do in the rights of people to be heard at the ballot box”

Senator Clinton met Bhutto in 1987 as First Lady of Arkansas, and took her daughter Chelsea to meet the then-Prime Minister in 1995. She learned about the assassination attempt from advisers, who later confirmed the sad news through their contacts in Pakistan.

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