OBAMA TO SPEAK: Reader David Wegener writes: “NBC has had two crawls during Celebrity Apprentice that Obama intents to make an important announcement. Is he actually planning on preempting the end of tonight’s show?”
Here’s a report: “House Intelligence committee aide confirms that Osama Bin Laden is dead. U.S. has the body.” Well, good. Better late than never. Alas, since I don’t have working TV, I won’t be able to watch.
More here.
And reader Dan Mason writes: “Usama Bin Laden dead — Obama capitalizes on the continuation of another program started by the Bush administration.” First Gitmo, now this? Well, I approve. But, then, a warmonger like me would, I suppose.
UPDATE: It’ll stream live here.
And Jody Green writes: “We have the body? What now? This will be interesting. What do we do with it. Put it on trial in NY? Send it to the Royal Family? Send it to Gitmo? Just curious.” On Facebook, Dana Loesch was suggesting we exhibit it Mussolini style. Of course, if he was killed by a missile there may not be much to exhibit.
Plus, thoughts from Austin Bay: “Would that we had him in Fall 2001. However, time has worked against Bin Laden. He dies tarnished. A man who hides in a cave for ten years is no martyr. He quickly lost the aura of divine sanction — he was driven out of Afghanistan, and the US stayed. Moreover, the US took its counter-terror war into the heart of the politically dysfunctional Arab Muslim world. What’s the choice between tyrant and terrorist? Iraq provides a choice. Al Qaeda made Iraq a battleground and lost — lost to the Iraqi people and the US.”
Also, thoughts from Pejman Yousefzadeh. “I am more than happy to give the Obama Administration–and the Bush Administration before it–plenty of credit for having designed and implemented the military operations that brought about bin Laden’s demise. Here’s hoping that he didn’t die quickly after the mortal blow landed.”
And a reader emails: “This is why we continue to use drones in Pakistan.” [LATER: Well, it wasn’t a drone, apparently.]
Much more here.
And on Facebook, Rick Torres comments: “(Has) Been Laden.” Plus, Frank Warner emails: “ESPN is running the Mets-Phillies game in Philadelphia. Minutes ago, here in the cradle of liberty, the fans started chanting, ‘USA! USA!’ You know why.”
Meanwhile, reader Shane Boyd cracks: “When do we get to see the long form death certificate?”
And he didn’t preempt Trump, because he still hasn’t come on. Hurry it up, man. I’m going to bed soon.
Plus, from Rick Moore on Facebook: “Reports are Obama’s speech is being delayed because the CIA is still trying to notify bin Laden’s next of goat.” Cheap, but still funny.
And Debbie Eberts emails: “Interesting that Petraeus was tapped for the CIA about the time OBL was actually killed.”
And Bigwig emails: “Not to be a wet blanket, and I’m glad he’s dead…but isn’t it a mistake have the President of the US schedule an unprecedented Sunday night speech just to announce his death? Won’t that just burnish Osama’s status even more as far as the Islamists are concerned?” Meh. His status is Room Temperature. I don’t mind underscoring that.
Jake Tapper tweets: “Sources say OBL killed at a mansion in pakistan, human mission, shot, US has the body.” A mansion in Pakistan? That raises real questions about Pakistani complicity with Osama. Stay tuned for the followups, I guess.
And Prof. Stephen Clark emails: “With Bin Laden dead, on to al-Zawahiri. I hope the President takes the opportunity to make clear – abundantly clear – that regardless of the administration, this country’s policy is now and forever will be to hunt these bastards down, every last one of them; that they will be killed in the field, or brought to justice in this country – and that either outcome is satisfactory.” Well, if he ever comes on, maybe he will. I can’t wait much longer.
Will there be any complaints from the usual lawfare types?
MORE: He’s on now.
Good speech so far. Interesting that Obama referenced Bush in a positive way here, which has not been his pattern of late. And he pretty much picked up on Prof. Clark’s point.
And it was nicely short and to the point. Well done.
And Bill Hobbs tweets: “Dude who nailed bin Laden will never be ‘one-upped’ anytime he’s in a group swapping war stories.”