Obama's Greatest Accomplishment

[I]f a significant part of the Democratic health care plan survives, that will “probably” easily outrank yesterday’s bin Laden success. Obama will have done something a series of popular Democratic presidents had failed to accomplish in more than half a century. … And it’s easy to overestimate the significance of Osama’s demise: Remember when we thought finding Saddam would turn the tide in Iraq?

C'mon. Does Mickey think bin Laden is the same as Saddam in the American psyche? OBL attacked ths country; Saddam didn't. Osama began this hideously divisive bait of a war. Saddam just couldn't cop to not having any WMDs. (By the way, Mickey had similar prescience (ahem) after 9/11, when he predicted we would have moved on by Thanksgiving.)

In my view, the president who found and killed Osama bin Laden will be very hard not to re-elect. Now the association between his name and his enemy's will be an asset: Obama killed Osama. A few tea-party fanatics will have their heads explode. And the Big Lie that Obama is somehow not a strong president is debunked - because strength doesn't actually mean being inflammatory on Fox News, it means exercizing patience, quiet and resolve to get what you want. That Obama also helped prevent a Great Depression - with zero Republican votes - and brought universal health insurance to America? All we need now is a debt deal. And the only way that's possible before the election is if Obama looks highly likely to win it. That likelihood just increased today.

So it's good potential news all round. And since this incident reveals that we are really at war with Pakistan, not Afghanistan, I suspect Obama will have the leverage to shift strategy drastically in the coming year. Without bin Laden and with Pakistan working against us, the logic for withdrawal just got a lot stronger. Which is why, I suspect, the hegemonists are busy reminding us this war is not over. Because for them, it's never over.

But your average American? We did what we went there to do after 9/11. And after ten years, it is time to leave. With our heads high. And justice done.

(Photo by Tina Fallon via Mackey)