That's pretty amazing. We must have been pretty damn sure he was there.

Oh great. They better lock down those nukes.

Did Obama go back to bed?

8th anniversary of Mission Accomplished, today.

So is the little thing in Afghanistan still "Obama's War?"

Sure it is ... and BTW, I think its been expanded to Pakistan now.

I'm just wondering if the same people that were calling it that on Friday will be calling it that on Monday...

One of the retired military talking heads pointed out that our best takedowns have been in Pakistan.

Damned if I don't wonder just how good they've gotten at working both sides of the street.

Ha, yeah, would be pretty hard to hide a mansion evaporating outside Islamabad. It's going to get ugly over there.

It will be interesting to hear world opinion and reaction (besides Pakistan/Afghanistan) especially Iraq, Palestine, moderate Muslim countries i.e. Indonesia, and China.

That's why I'm finding it hard to believe that either
a) he wasn't bombed in a mansion
or
b) the Pakis did the bombing themselves, at our direction/with our targeting

It's almost impossible for me to imagine that a missile/bomb hit a mansion in a place that size and we didn't hear a peep about it for a week.

One source ... by ground operation.

Sources: Al-Qaida head bin Laden dead - Yahoo! News

"Outside Islamabad" could mean pretty rural, and really OUTSIDE Islamabad. I don't know the geography of the area, but I could see him a countryside-estate as opposed to a nice neighborhood lot with a market down the street.

Lots of folks celebrating outside the WH.

Here's the prez now.

Cooperation with Pakistanis. Good speech.

He sounded very careful in explaining Pakistan. I'll be interested to hearing what comes out of that.

Heh. No matter how little confidence I have in this President, I feel pretty secure in believing that "explaining" was what he did on the phone tonight.

As in, explaining to them what their public reaction was going to be or that they'd be trying to explain to the world why they harbored OBL's ass for so long before the sun rose over D.C.

Sounds as if other OBL family was in the mansion.

It'll be fascinating reading when the book comes out.

wrong thread sorry

Just read an article on The Guardian website that this would probably lock up the election for Obama. I find that questionable. Bush Sr won decisively in Iraq in Feb/Mar of '91 (89% approval rating on 2/28/91) and lost the election in Nov of '92. I am sure that this will be a minor or no issue at all by the time the election rolls around. We have pretty short memories in this country.

Yeah, this will not have any legs. But I'd be shocked if isn't worth a 10-15+ point approval bump for the next couple of weeks. Beyond that, probably not. Stocks are up around the world on the news, which is funny (how exactly was OBL suppressing the stock market?).

I think this is a bigger deal than the Gulf War. Speaking from a pure political observation point of view, the nature of modern politics automatically makes a huge national security victory a bigger deal for a Democrat than it does a Republican. It takes away a huge issue for Republicans in 2012. It will be very hard for them to criticize his foreign policy. No matter how long the polling bump lasts, it will certain affect the nature of the general election in 2012.

Adrenaline, mood, etc. related buying/spending. I saw somewhere earlier that oil prices were down 1% so far today as well (which would in turn be seen as a positive for many investment sectors). One of those brief things that's kind of predictable I think, heck even I called that one less than an hour after the news broke & I'm an eternal pessimist ;)

I turned on the radio station I work at 30 min after the news broke. They were running a tape of the resident Obama-basher, who was into a rant about how bad Obama's economy is. They then finally broke in with "breaking news" and went to a national feed in progress.

So how does one go on the air tomorrow claiming Obama hates the country & is an al-quada sympathizer?

Clearly killing bin Laden was Obama's final step in his efforts to assume control as the leader of Al-Quada. Now with his rival out of the way Obama can really get to work on bringing down America.

Let me show you how easy this is.

He's a politician at heart, if he thinks eliminating an old man who hasn't really been tied to anything directly in years will keep him in power then that's what he'll do.

For me, I'll largely shrug about that aspect of it. If you do the right thing for the wrong reasons, you still did the right thing. In this case I'm just happy that when the time came to sign the order it was at one of his twice-a-day stopped clock opportunities, not really giving much of a shit why he told Panetta to make it the first priority of the CIA (which he says he did & I'll take at face value).

All that matters is the economy, ask Bush 1.

Can I just say, this was probably the bravest call of Obama's presidency? They had presented him a plan back in March, Send a couple of B2's with about a dozen 2k lbs bombs and level the compound. He told them no. They had to have a body (absolutely right), they couldn't kill 20+ civilians in hopes of getting him, and they could never know afterward that he was actually there. So much could have gone wrong doing it with "boots on the ground" in a heavily secured compound, working in foreign airspace without permission, and within a stones throw of several Pakistani military installations.

Hate him all you want, he did this one right. He did what Bush seemingly couldn't. Hats off, Mr. President.

Agreed. I didn't expect Obama to be this decisive and effective in his role as commander-in-chief, but this was impressive.

Or Clinton who chickened out on his chance before all of this got rolling. So yes, glad to see Obama willing to make the call.

The Seals did an amazing job too from what it sounds like. No casualties on their end and they dealt with a chopper failure. Even blew the thing up on the way out so that nothing could be taken from it. The compound seemed heavily fortified and of course they were walking into an unknown.

Agree with this. Coming from a lifelong Democrat, this is the first time I have been impressed with anything Obama has done since naming his Cabinet. The argument about the relevancy of this aside, the mastermind of the worst foreign attack on American soil has been brought to justice. Case closed. Well done.

Front page of CNN now says "No indication Obama tried to surrender..." :)

They changed it as I was posting this.

Man, right wing radio is going to have a hard time dealing with this for a few days. I'm sure they'll get back on track, but I am also sure we will hear some wacky stuff in the coming week.

Pretty sure both parties are in favor of endless war. Not sure why you buy into the "Democrats are doves" paradigm.

Here's supposedly a picture

Osama bin Laden Dead: The Reaction from Pakistan - The Daily Beast

I believe that picture has been proven photoshopped. Still looking for a source to be sure, its something I heard on an NPR discussion earlier today, that a site had dissected the most popular picture out there and shown exactly what source photos were used and how it was shopped.

That's the popular refrain, but it's not so cut and dry. The strength of the economy is relative to expectations. For example, Reagan called it "Morning in America" when unemployment was at the same level as when Carter left office. Likewise, Bush was tossed out of office when unemployment had reached 7.4%. If unemployment is 7.4% in 2012, then Obama is winning 40+ states in a cakewalk.

Also, as I pointed out earlier, this changes the nature of the campaign that the GOP can run. In every election, they have a huge edge on national security issues. The Gulf War didn't give Bush Sr. that much of an edge because he already had a huge edge for voters that cared about that issue. With Obama, this definitely gives him a boost in an area where Democrats are usually seen as being weak.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMD80...eature=related

Gee, Guile's music DOES fit perfectly :)

Agreed on the praise & approach that Obama took on this. It isn't that I had an expectation he wouldn't do something like this, but it is reassuring to know he does not have "analysis paralysis".

I also agree this is another item on the GOP list they will simply not be able to rely on. I didn't think they had a shot at the Presidency before...but unless we hit some truly disastrous economic downturn...I think its going to be next to impossible for any of the candidates that have come forward so far to even match what McCain did.

When I first heard about the premature & incorrect "missile a week ago and just confirmed" I thought it was okay, glad it was done.

When I heard about a spec ops assault just hours before the speech, I thought "that's a better way".

Not sure if I would still feel the way if there were a bunch of US casulties ... but Obama deserves praise for being able to make the decision and our spec ops are just unbelievable -- flying into Pakistan without prior approval (tbd but think likely), do the 40 min shootout (which seems long to me but what do I know), escape with body etc. without the Pakistani's being able to react to it.

Maybe I've misunderstood things but I believe the 40 minute window was first action on site (say the fast rope/rappel) to last action (liftoff). The would cover the firefight but also grabbing the body, securing/determining what to do with the survivors, prepping the 4th helicopter for demolition & blowing it. Basically everything, not a full on firefight for 40 minutes.

There was also three floors to clear, and a bunch of rooms - (it really does seem like a FPS mission). Osama and his family lived on the top two floors, and I imagine there was resistance throughout.

Yeah, that's a fake. Actually been floating around for a few years.

Lathum needs to take a drink.

Seems everyone is making this mistake. ;)

D'oh!

Honestly, when I first starting to notice Obama was making waves on the national level and saw that his middle name was Hussein, I told my wife that there was no way he would ever be president. I mean, come on, a black guy with middle and last names similar to current American enemies. No chance. Shows what I know.

I was thinking about this today as well. A testament to a) how far we have come in America, b) how bad the economy was in 2008 and c) what a stiff John McCain was.

Not sure how you read that into my post. I just meant that the President did something that is almost universally above criticism... so it will be a tough few days.

I know that secretly you are pissed that he is getting any kind of praise, so give me a break.

See how annoying it is when people just put words in your mouth?