Shots in the Dark

The Atlantic has some astonishing photos of the bottom of the world. Cold!

My favorite: the footprints.

The Times and lots of other places report that the President is showing a jump in his approval ratings after the killing of Osama Bin Laden. No surprise there; I expect it won’t last very long. As David Leonhardt writes in today’s Times, the economy is just too weak, and the recovery too fragile.

But I think there’s a more subtle effect of bin Laden’s death that may last longer: a furtherance of the idea that Obama is an exceptional (and I mean that literally) president and a different Democrat.

Remember the Iran hostage crisis? Jimmy Carter was defined by it, and in particular the failed rescue mission in which five out of nine helicopters involved either crashed, burned or broke down, and Carter aborted the mission.

Bill Clinton, of course, had his Black Hawk down episode in Somalia.

The mission to kill bin Laden had its own helicopter fiasco. (Why is it so hard?) And yet, it pressed on and succeeded. In the process, Obama distinguished himself as a Democrat whose military mission didn’t turn into a fiasco—though it could have—but
instead gave America a little boost in self-confidence. Hey, so what if it took a decade to kill the guy? We persevered and we took him out. And Obama gave the orders.

Does Obama deserve credit for this? Sure. For one thing, he made the decision to launch a raid rather than just bomb the compound into dust. For another, it’s the nature of the job—you get blamed for things that go wrong although you have little power over them (the economy), you get credit for things that go right even if they really hinged on the military doing its job.

I don’t know what the long-term implications of this mission are for relations with the MIddle East or the fight against terrorism or the survival of al Qaeda.

But I’m quite sure that it will elevate Obama above his recent Democratic predecessors. The guy isn’t perfect, of course. But on balance, he’s a winner. The death of bin Laden drives the point home.

If, as Donald Trump might say, Richard Bradley is not careful, Richard Bradley is going to start referring to himself in the third person.

Richard Bradley is interviewed by Lindsay Tucker of Boston magazine here.

…Why did you decide to revisit the Kennedys after the difficulties you faced in trying to get your book about John Jr. published?

I ask myself the same thing sometimes….

The man-who-cannot-laugh-at-himself cancelled an appearance on the David Letterman show because Letterman said that Trump was a racist for playing the birther stuff.

“There is nobody who is less of a racist than Donald Trump,” said…Donald Trump.

Which is weird, because Trump is a racist for playing the birther stuff and also because it’s odd to refer to oneself in the third person.

Nicely handled by Obama, I think. The inclusion of that Lion King stuff is both subversive— and hilarious.

Except for himself!