Department of Excitable Overreaction: Howie Kurtz of the Daily Beast:
Much will transpire between now and the 2012 election, but it is safe to say that what happened Sunday will probably rank as Obama’s greatest achievement. [E.A.]
You wouldn’t want Kurtz to say anything not safe to say–but this declaration seems highly suspect. For one thing, if 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?
Update: Not one to be outdone in the excitability department, Andrew Sullivan writes:
In my view, the president who found and killed Osama bin Laden will be very hard not to re-elect.
Remember that overreacting to the news is Sullivan’s job. My guess is that in a year the killing of OBL will loom much, much smaller than it does today. Even if it doesn’t, a second leap of Overexcited Pundit Logic is required before you can conclude that it will translate into political near-invulnerability. Military success, after all, is often rewarded with a “thank you” and electoral defeat (see, e.g., Winston Churchill, George H.W. Bush).