Stockholmers went to work with a leaden step this morning. From my 46 bus, as it drove along Södermalm’s northern shore, you could see the city’s gorgeous skyline, and in the middle of it stood the NK tower and its rotating logo, as if it were a beacon marking the deed. People stared. Then, at Slussen junction, the bus stopped next to huge posters of a smiling Anna Lindh hawking yes votes. Today, these pictures felt eerily like tributes.

Anna Lindh isn’t doing as well as originally reported. She’d be out of danger if only the bleeding from her liver would stop. It’s on everybody’s mind here.

And today is September 11. Two years ago, in a few hours, I saw a plane smash into the World Trade Center, and then I saw the towers collapse. I certainly hope it is the most awful thing I will see in my life, and while I remember it every day, September 11s will never be the same.

Who could hate a Swedish foreign minister so much? Especially Lindh? I think the answer is simple: People who hate the open society; people who have been on the blunt end of a Swedish foreign policy that promotes democracy, accountability, and human rights. Without any evidence, let me venture that if it was a hit job, the police should be looking at the Russian mafia for its child prostitution rings, and at Milosevic afficionados.