Barack Obama has had many defining moments as U.S. president. The death of Osama bin Laden may become the most significant for him politically.
Obama, a Democrat, announced late on Sunday that U.S. forces had killed the al Qaeda leader and recovered his body. The death handed Obama a major national security victory just as he begins campaigning for re-election in 2012.
Obama and his people should get some of the credit for this, as should President Bush's administration. But most deserving of praise are our intelligence and military communities that kept working on getting bin Laden through both administrations. They're the reason we're still a superpower, and if we're going to be attacked as a superpower, we'd better be prepared like one. Our current leaders can talk about "America's decline" all they want to as long as they screw up our military readiness and intelligence capabilities and thereby hasten the decline.
