In a politically contested city such as Beirut, there are public figures who fall to assassins, and others deemed safe by their reasonableness and moderation.
The assassination Dec. 27 of former Finance Minister Mohamad Chatah by a car bomb in a swanky part of the city called into question the rules of the sordid political game that has come to dominate Lebanon's life.
Chatah wasn't a warlord, or a man of the militias. He was an economist, a technocrat with a Ph.D. from the University of Texas. He had served as his country's ambassador to Washington, and knew the world of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In his early 60s, he was a Sunni Muslim whose political career was tethered to that of his mentor, the legendary tycoon Rafik Hariri, who dared question Syria's domination of his country and was killed by a car bomb nine years ago.