The Commentariat -- May 5

Why Are We Talking about Torture? Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: "Debating whether torture, years ago, was responsible for the death of Osama bin Laden and therefore vindicated ... requires not only putting together a bunch of tenuous connections to make the positive case but ignoring the much more obvious evidence of the costs of the policy along the way that matter even if that tenuous positive case is true. Or, to put it another way: It’s an easy case to make on faith, but sort of preposterous otherwise." Bernstein thinks conservatives are touting torture because (a) they want to divert attention from praise of President Obama, (b) they want to emphasize as issue that divides the parties,  & (c) they feel the need to "profess their faith" in torture "loudly & often." Thanks to Trish R. for the link. CW: And they definitely want to get their names in the paper.

Gail Collins rips into Indiana's Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels who, while flirting with a run for president, is preparing to sign a bill defunding Planned Parenthood in the state & further curbing abortion rights. Under the bill, which the Republican-led legislature has passed & Daniels has backed, it will be

impossible for Medicaid recipients to make use of the 28 Planned Parenthood clinics in the state and bans abortions for pregnancies that have reached 20 weeks. Also, doctors would be required to tell women seeking abortions that 'medical evidence shows that a fetus can feel pain at or before 20 weeks,' that human life begins when the egg is fertilized and that having an abortion could cause infertility.

     I've added a comments page for Collins' column on Off Times Square & have posted my comment on Collins' column. You can comment on Collins or on any other political or news items.

Adam Entous, et al., of the Wall Street Journal: "U.S. and European intelligence officials increasingly believe active or retired Pakistani military or intelligence officials provided some measure of aid to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, allowing him to stay hidden in a large compound just a mile from an elite military academy.... 'There's no doubt he was protected by some in the ISI...,' a high-level European military official ... said." ...

... Yochi Dreazen, et al., of the National Journal: "The [Obama] administration had made clear to the military’s clandestine Joint Special Operations Command that it wanted bin Laden dead, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the discussions.  A high-ranking military officer briefed on the assault said the SEALs knew their mission was not to take him alive." ...

Vice Admiral William McRaven. Photo via the Washington Post.... Terrorist Hunter. Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post profiles Vice Adm. William McRaven, who oversaw the raid on the bin Laden compound. "He has worked almost exclusively on counterterrorism operations and strategy since 2001, when as a Navy captain he was assigned to the White House shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. The author of a textbook titled 'Spec Ops,' McRaven had long emphasized six key requirements for any successful mission: surprise, speed, security, simplicity, purpose and repetition. For the especially risky bin Laden operation, he insisted on another: precision."

Center on Budget & Policy Priorities: "Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee today [Wednesday] on the limitations on reducing deficits through changes in the budget process, Senior Fellow Paul Van de Water explained that Senator Corker’s proposed federal spending cap would (among other things) make the economy less stable.... Former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder made the same point recently.... [The proposal also] fails to account for basic changes in society and government and would force deep cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security...."

The Dumbing-Down of America, Con'd. Sam Dillon of the New York Times: "Fewer than half of American eighth graders knew the purpose of the Bill of Rights on the most recent national civics examination, and only one in 10 demonstrated acceptable knowledge of the checks and balances among the legislative, executive and judicial branches, according to test results released on Wednesday."

Right Wing World *

The Ryan plan doesn't cut Medicare. Actually, it increases funding in it.... The only people in this town that have voted to cut Medicare spending are the people who voted in favor of Obamacare. That's a fact. And so the truth is the people. -- Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), on "Meet the Press"

Paul Krugman: "... now that the [Republican/Ryan] budget has turned out to be both cruel and ludicrous, Republicans have taken to defending it by ... lying about it. Jonathan Cohn catches Marco Rubio declaring that the Ryan plan doesn’t cut Medicare funding — when the Medicare cuts were precisely what supposedly made the plan 'serious'. (We were supposed to focus on that, not on the huge tax cuts or the plan’s reliance on assuming that discretionary spending could be reduced to Calvin Coolidge levels). Here's the Cohn article.

Known and Unknown -- What Will Donald Rumsfeld Say Next? Joan Walsh of Salon: after telling Newsmax on Monday that information that led to finding Osama bin Laden "was not torture and it was not waterboarding," Rumsfeld told Sean Hannity that the CIA got "critically important" information from people the CIA waterboarded." CW: sounds as if after his first remark, somebody told Rumsfeld he should go back to defending torture, as John Yoo, Liz Cheney & other members of the Torture Cult have been doing.

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

President Obama lays a wreath at Ground Zero:

... AND Vice President Biden lays a wreath at the Pentagon:

New York Times: "After reviewing computer files and documents seized at the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, American intelligence analysts have concluded that the chief of Al Qaeda played a direct role for years in plotting terror attacks from his hide-out in Abbottabad, Pakistan, United States officials said Thursday." The Washington Post story  is here. ABC News story here, with video report.

President & Mrs. Obama hosted a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the White House this evening.

President Obama participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at Ground Zero in New York City earlier this afternoon. Minutes later, Vice President Biden participated in a similar ceremony at the Pentagon. Obama met with 9/11 family members. AP story here. New York Times Update: "... in the wreath ceremony and in a series of meeting across Manhattan on Thursday, the president had a chance to meet one-to-one with the people whose lives were changed most deeply by Bin Laden — relatives of the victims, as well as firefighters and other rescue workers who lost comrades that morning."

Vice President Biden meets with lawmakers from both parties this morning with a goal toward reaching compromise on deficit reduction.

Daily Beast: "The Pakistani Foreign Ministry says it told U.S. intelligence two years ago of suspicions about the compound in Abbottabad where bin Laden was found.

AP: Fake Osama bin Laden death photographs go viral, global. CW: I have heard that some of the main sites that feature these fake photos contain viruses, so before you decide to entertain yourself looking at fake pictures of a dead terrorist, consider the source. ...

... AND They Fooled Republican Senators. Time: Republican Senators have been passing around the fake photos via their cellphones, & at least three -- Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire), Saxby Chambliss (Georgia) & Scott Brown (Massachusetts) were duped into thinking the photos were real. Brown even boasted about having seen the death photos in an NECN interview & had to issue a retraction.

Washington Post: "... on Wednesday, leaders of the minority parties in the Senate and House introduced their jobs agendas in spirited fashion. Senate Republicans and House Democrats sought to demonstrate that, unlike the parties that control their respective chambers, they are focused chiefly on one of the top concerns of American voters: creating jobs and stimulating economic growth."

Al Jazeera: "The NATO-backed coalition in Libya has said it would create a fund for rebels running short of supplies and money. Italy, host of Thursday's meeting in Rome of the Contact Group on Libya, said the temporary special fund would aim to channel cash to the opposition administration in its eastern Libyan stronghold of Benghazi."

AP: "Claude Stanley Choules..., the last-known combat veteran of World War I..., died in a Western Australia nursing home Thursday at age 110.

The Commentariat -- May 4

Off Times Square is open for comments on Dowd's & Friedman's columns. I've posted my comments. -- CW

... Maureen Dowd concentrates on "the president’s studied cool and unreadable mien" under pressure, but ends by saying we must do something about Pakistan, where elements of the leadership almost certainly were complicit in hiding Osama bin Laden. Yeah? What? ...

... Tom Friedman, in a fairly coherent essay, attempts to show why Osama bin Laden intially succeeded but ultimately failed to capture the hearts & minds of the Arab world. ...

... Obama Ruins Republican Attack Line. New York Times Editors: "... just as releasing a birth certificate marginalized one falsehood, Mr. Obama’s risky and audacious decision to attack the Bin Laden compound in Pakistan has demolished the notion that he cannot make tough decisions or cares primarily about the nation’s image abroad." Read the whole editorial. It's a good summary of various attempts to diminish Obama, all centered on the "he's not one of us" theme. ...

... Last week in a post titled "Liberalism's Bumper Sticker Problem," Jonathan Chait of The New Republic highlighted a segment of Ryan Lizza's New Yorker article (which I've previously linked & is here) on President Obama's foreign policy in which Lizza cited Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes saying, "If you were to boil it all down to a bumper sticker, it’s ‘Wind down these two wars, reëstablish American standing and leadership in the world, and focus on a broader set of priorities, from Asia and the global economy to a nuclear-nonproliferation regime.’ ” Chait remarked, "I'm not sure Rhodes understands what bumper stickers look like," & posted the graphic to the left. ...

... Now, Joshua Green of The Atlantic remarks that "... what's most relevant here is ... that Obama now has a simple rejoinder to the crude attacks on his foreign policy."

We never had direct evidence that he in fact had ever been there or was located there. The reality was that we could have gone in there and not found bin Laden at all. -- Leon Panetta, CIA Director ...

... Greg Miller & Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: "... additional details surfaced Tuesday that depict a mission launched amid far greater political and operational uncertainty than had been revealed." ...

... Jim Lehrer of PBS "News Hour" interviews Leon Panetta:, Unlike some of the interviews of Panetta on the major networks, this one is truly riveting:

... Dana Bash of CNN: "CIA Director Leon Panetta told House members Tuesday that any way you look at it, Pakistan's role in Osama bin Laden's whereabouts was troubling. According to two sources in a closed door briefing, Panetta told lawmakers 'either they were involved or incompetent. Neither place is a good place to be.'" ...

... Massimo Calabresi of Time: "... CIA chief Leon Panetta tells Time that U.S. officials feared that Pakistan could have undermined the operation by leaking word to its targets."

Jonathan Allen of Politico: "Osama bin Laden had cash totaling 500 Euros and two telephone numbers sewn into his clothing when he was killed — sure signs that he was prepared to flee his compound at a moment’s notice — top U.S. intelligence officials told members of Congress at a classified briefing in the Capitol Tuesday. A White House spokesman said he would not comment on the matter."

... Steven Myers & Jane Perlez of the New York Times: "Tensions between the American and Pakistani governments intensified sharply on Tuesday as senior Obama administration officials demanded answers to how Osama bin Laden managed to hide in Pakistan, and the Pakistani government issued a defiant statement calling the raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader 'an unauthorized unilateral action.'” ...

... AND Karen DeYoung & Karin Bruillard of the Washington Post: "Obama administration officials here and in Islamabad demanded Tuesday that Pakistan quickly provide answers to specific questions about Osama bin Laden and his years-long residence in a bustling Pakistani city surrounded by military installations. In addition to detailed information about the bin Laden compound — who owned and built the structure and its security system — Pakistani officials were asked in meetings with U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic interlocutors to provide names of witnesses who can testify about visitors to the compound." ...

... Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy: "Pakistani Ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani said that his government will conduct a series of internal investigations to find out how bin Laden could have been living deep less than 100 miles from the capital, Islamabad, and to determine if any Pakistani government personnel were helping him. He also said that the investigations will be conducted solely by Pakistan, without direct U.S. involvement.... Haqqani said, 'We totally reject there was complicity as a policy decision. The only other two explanations are incompetence and overconfidence of our security services.' ... Various Pakistani officials' conflicting statements about what they knew, and when, are complicating Pakistan's diplomatic response to the bin Laden embarrassment."

Following up on Ezra Klein's post, an abbreviated version of which I linked the other day, Stephen Gandel of Time provides a few widely-divergent estimates on what Osama bin Laden cost the U.S.

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "The torture crowd has been hard at work the past 24 hours, doing its best to push the idea that it was the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohommed that led to the courier who eventually led U.S. intelligence to Osama bin Laden." Mainstream media outlets have accepted this as a given. Both Marcy Wheeler & New York Times reporters have debunked this myth. (CW: and, I would add, so has Jane Mayer of the New Yorker -- see yesterday's Commentariat.) But, citing a Newsmax "exclusive" (yes, Newsmax!), McCarter notes that the architect of torture -- former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld himself -- says,  

It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding. ...

... AND Scott Shane & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "As intelligence officials disclosed the trail of evidence that led to the compound in Pakistan where Bin Laden was hiding, a chorus of Bush administration officials claimed vindication for their policy of 'enhanced interrogation techniques' like waterboarding....   But a closer look at prisoner interrogations suggests that the harsh techniques played a small role at most in identifying Bin Laden’s trusted courier and exposing his hide-out." ...

... Massimo Calabresi: Jose Rodriguez, "a former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, who was investigated last year by the Justice Department for the destruction of videos showing senior al-Qaeda officials being interrogated, says that the harsh questioning of terrorism suspects produced the information that eventually led to Osama bin Laden’s death." The White House disagrees.

"Don't Release the Photos." Philip Gourevitch of the New Yorker: "Did we learn nothing from the past decade about the overwhelming power of crude images of violence to define and polarize our historical moment? The Abu Ghraib photographs ... should have taught us that a photograph of the violence you inflict is always, in very large measure, a self-portrait. In getting rid of bin Laden, Obama has made the greatest step yet toward being able to put that era behind us. Do we want a photo of bin Laden’s bullet-punctured skull to eclipse this moment?" ...

AND ... Politically Incorrect. Neely Tucker of the Washington Post: American Indians object to the code name "Geronimo" which was used to identify the bin Laden operation & perhaps bin Laden himself.

Dana Milbank: "President Obama, in the afterglow of his Osama bin Laden triumph, pleaded with congressional leaders at a dinner Monday night to preserve the warm courage of national unity.... Thirteen hours later, Republicans answered Obama’s plea for bonhomie — with broadsides.... House GOP leaders decided against a resolution congratulating the U.S. military...."

... The "Pax Bin Ladenis" Lasted 13 Hours. A New Kind of Republican Fundraiser. New York Times Editors: Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee are preparing to vote for a bill to cripple the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They know the bill will not become law, but they are using the vote as a ploy "to rake in Wall Street donations." The Obama Administration has been ignoring the passage of such House bills. But ... "Unless the administration offers a quick, full-throated defense, the agency may never fulfill its promise. And the process by which Congress is bought and sold — and consumers and taxpayers are hung out to dry — will be, once again, on full display." 

Paul Krugman begins a post on "the falling dollar phobia" like so: "I continue to be amazed by the way Very Serious People find ways to worry about everything except devastating unemployment."

Right Wing World *

Ezra Klein: "As a participant in the great health-care wars of 2010, it’s been — I don’t know: Amusing? Depressing? Annoying? Vindicating? — to watch Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget run over every principle or concern that Republicans considered so life-or-death a mere 400 days ago." Klein provides a partial list of the GOP's 180-degree about-face. (This post is a couple of weeks old, but nothing has changed.)

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

Here's Jay Carney, citing President Obama's explanation to CBS News' Steve Kroft, as to why the government will not release photos of the deceased Osama bin Laden. Clip:

... A link to a brief clip to the President speaking to Kroft is here.

NBC News: "Four of the five people shot to death in the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, including the al-Qaida leader himself, were unarmed and never fired a shot, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday — an account that differs markedly from the Obama administration's original claims that the Navy SEALs came under heavy small-arms fire in a prolonged firefight." ...

... Reuters: "Photographs acquired by Reuters and taken about an hour after the U.S. assault on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan show three dead men lying in pools of blood, but no weapons. The photos, taken by a Pakistani security official who entered the compound after the early morning raid on Monday, show two men dressed in traditional Pakistani garb and one in a t-shirt, with blood streaming from their ears, noses and mouths." The photos are here. CW: They come with a warning, which I heeded. ...

... New York Times: "... new details suggested that the raid, though chaotic and bloody, was extremely one-sided, with a force of more than 20 Navy Seal members quickly dispatching the handful of men protecting Bin Laden. Administration officials said that the only shots fired by those in the compound came at the beginning of the operation, when Bin Laden’s trusted courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, opened fire from behind the door of the guesthouse adjacent to the house where Bin Laden was hiding. After the Seal members shot and killed Mr. Kuwaiti and a woman in the guesthouse, the Americans were never fired upon again."

Washington Post: "Senior Republicans conceded Wednesday that a deal is unlikely on a contentious plan to overhaul Medicare and offered to open budget talks with the White House by focusing on areas where both parties can agree, such as cutting farm subsidies."

Charles, Prince of Wales, & President Obama in the Oval Office. AP photo. Of course, this picture is totally phony. Charles never got near the White House & Obama was out for a round of golf. But, hey, those expert Photoshoppers that Obama put out of work today had to do something. The "AP" in AP photo? That stands for Aaadvanced Photoshop. I'm really sick of conspiracy theories. -- CWPresident Obama met with Charles, Prince of Wales, this afternoon. AP Update: "Prince Charles met with U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday to commend the work that first lady Michelle Obama has done to combat childhood obesity and hunger in the U.S."

McClatchy News: "Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz took the helm of the national Democratic party Wednesday, pledging to 'work every single day' to re-elect President Barack Obama and Democrats up and down the ballot."

President Obama welcomed the Wounded Warrior Project's Soldiers' Ride this afternoon.

In his press briefing, Jay Carney says the President will not release photos of Osama bin Laden's corpse. Here's the AP story. The Washington Post story is here. The CBS News story is here. Update: you can watch a brief clip of the interview here.

New York Times: Prince Charles spoke at Georgetown University this morning about the importance of sustainable agriculture.

New York Times: the U.S.'s finding Osama bin Laden in the heart of Pakistan's military community gives India new reason to distrust Pakistan.

Washington Post: "The Obama administration is beginning another effort to change the nation’s immigration laws, despite little enthusiasm from Republicans in Congress. President Obama met for more than an hour Tuesday with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, his third session on the issue at the White House in the past three weeks. White House aides promised a renewed push to try to persuade Congress and the American public to back Obama’s proposals, which would combine stronger enforcement of current immigration laws with the creation of a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants."

New York Times: "The population of the world, long expected to stabilize just above 9 billion in the middle of the century, will instead keep growing and may hit 10.1 billion by the year 2100, the United Nations projected in a report released Tuesday. Growth in Africa remains so high that the population there could more than triple in this century, rising from today’s one billion to 3.6 billion, the report said — a sobering forecast for a continent already struggling to provide food and water for its people." CW: And Pope Benedict is telling the faithful using contraception is a sin. So did Near-Saint John Paul II in another of his very saintly dogmas.

New York Times: "President Obama invited former President George W. Bush to join him at ground zero in New York City on Thursday to mark the killing of Osama bin Laden, but Mr. Bush declined, a spokesman for the former president confirmed on Tuesday."

CNN: "Residents of the LeDroit Park, a low income area of Washington gathered at the neighborhood farm on Tuesday to meet with ... the Prince of Wales. Prince Charles arrived in the U.S. Tuesday afternoon for a three-day visit that includes stops at the Supreme Court, Georgetown University and the White House."

The Commentariat -- May 3

I've opened a comments page for David Brooks' & Joe Nocera's columns on the Off Times Square page. They both write about the killing of Osama bin Laden. Links to their columns are on Off Times Square, too. Comments on yesterday's Open Thread & Krugman's column were excellent. Thank you. ...

     ... Update: Karen Garcia & I have both commented on Brooks & Nocera, & her comments are real winners. (For reasons beyond me, the Times appears to have dumped both of Garcia's comments, so this is the place to read them.) Plus Valerie Long Tweedie comments on the now-or-way-later opportunity the demise of bin Laden presents. -- CW

At last night's Congressional dinner, President Obama discusses the death of Osama bin Laden:

... The Washington Post has a pretty handy interactive feature that lets you click on various stories & graphcs that relate to the killing of Osama bin Laden.

... Mark Mazzetti, et al., of the New York Times have a good story on the intelligence that led up to the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. The initial tip came from Pakistanis working for the CIA. ...

... Marc Ambinder of the National Journal gets into the nitty-gritty of the team effort (yes, our federal agencies can work as a team) that took out bin Laden. ...

... Adam Goldman & Matt Apuzzo of the AP: "When one of Osama bin Laden's most trusted aides picked up the phone last year, he unknowingly led U.S. pursuers to the doorstep of his boss, the world's most wanted terrorist. That monitored phone call, recounted Monday by a U.S. official, ended a years-long search for bin Laden's personal courier, the key break in a worldwide manhunt. The courier, in turn, led U.S. intelligence to a walled compound in northeast Pakistan, where a team of Navy SEALs shot bin Laden to death." ...

... CW: Finding the location of Osama bin Laden had many fathers. See also link to Jane Mayer's New Yorker post below. ...

... Mike Allen of Politico: "The assault force of Navy SEALs snatched a trove of computer drives and disks during their weekend raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, yielding what a U.S. official called 'the mother lode of intelligence.' The special operations forces grabbed personal computers, thumb drives and electronic equipment during the lightning raid that killed bin Laden, officials told Politico." ...

... In a Washington Post op-ed Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari argues that Pakistan did its part in "eliminating" Osama bin Laden and takes "some satisfaction that our early assistance in identifying an al-Qaeda courier ultimately led to this day."

... Former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan, in a New York Times op-ed: "To the Qaeda members I interrogated at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere in the aftermath of 9/11, Osama bin Laden was never just the founder and leader of the group, but also an idea. He embodied the belief that their version of Islam was correct, that terrorism was the right weapon, and that they would ultimately be victorious. Bin Laden’s death did not kill that idea, but did deal it a mortal blow.... Our greatest tool, we must remember, is America itself.... Effectively conveying [our idea] will bury the Bin Laden idea with him." ...

... ** BUT. Ezra Klein on how & why Osama bin Laden contributed to crippling the economy of two great nations. Commenter Neel Kumar (#11) makes the same point in response to Brooks' column. (In case you didn't notice, the comments to Brooks' column are often more informative than the column.)

... Fred Kaplan in Slate: "The killing of Osama Bin Laden is no mere act of symbolism. Besides finally disposing of the world's No. 1 terrorist target and idol, the deed opens up some opportunities for a broader breakthrough in the war against al-Qaida—and, potentially, for a settlement of the war in Afghanistan." But it won't be easy, & there are many variables. ...

... Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker: "At least on the surface, relations between the United States and Pakistan are the worst they have been in years, largely because American officials are running out of patience with the double game" wherein they help both the U.S. (in exchange for billions of dollars in aid) & the most extremist elements of the Taliban. ...

... Tweeting the Killing of Osama bin Laden -- Without Knowing It. This is pretty fascinating. Sohaib Athar, an English-speaking coffeeshop owner in Abbottabad, hears the goings-on at the bin Laden compound, and tweets his impressions. Cursor down to the first (lowest) May 1 entry. Via Ben Smith. Update: actually, it's easier to get to Athar's relevant posts in this Washington Post report. ...

... PLUS. Paul Fahri of the Washington Post: twenty minutes before the first news network reported on the killing of Osama bin Laden, Keith Urbahn, the chief of staff to former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, tweeted, "So I’m told by a reputable person, they have killed Osama bin Laden. Hot damn." Although Urbahn got his info from someone in the media, news organization held back till they had more confirmation.

Right Wing World *

... Thank you, intelligence community; thank you, Navy SEALS, & thank you, President Bush. Oh, and you, too, President, er, Obama:

... I commend President Obama who has followed the vigilance of President Bush in bringing Bin Laden to justice. -- Eric Cantor, House Majority Leader ...

... ** If you have a single Republic friend who believes and/or spouts Cantor's line of bull, which is apparently the party line, you must read Steve Benen, who tears the newest Republican myth into little bitty shreds. Even President Bush said he wasn't chasing bin Laden -- multiple times. ...

... On that same note, Jane Mayer in the New Yorker: "It may have taken nearly a decade to find and kill Osama bin Laden, but it took less than twenty-four hours for torture apologists to claim credit for his downfall. Keep America Safe, an organization run by former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol, released a victory statement today that entirely failed to mention President Obama, but lavishly credited 'the men and women of America’s intelligence services who, through their interrogation of high-value detainees, developed the information that apparently led us to bin Laden." Mayer details the timeline of CIA/torturer control of detainees to disprove Cheney & Kristol's claim. ...

... More on that same note from David Rittgers of the right-wing Cato Institute, in a Washington Examiner op-ed: "The brilliant success of this operation demonstrates the marked improvement in our human intelligence capabilities over the last decade." Rittgers never mentions President Obama (he does, reluctantly once mention the Obama administration.)

... To be fair, I have to add this from Jeff Zeleny & Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "President Obama drew praise from unlikely quarters on Monday for pursuing a risky and clandestine mission to kill Osama bin Laden, a successful operation that interrupted the withering Republican criticism about his foreign policy, world view and his grasp of the office." The congratulatory remarks came from some of the meanest thugs on the right: Dick Cheney, Rudy Giuliani & Donald Trump. ...

...Update: But look at this pile of Santorum coming out of the right-wing media & collected by Media Matters. As I've been arguing, Right Wing World is truly an alternate world that is reality-free.

* Where facts never intrude.

Then there's Conspiracy World, which has inhabitants on the left and the right:

     Bin Laden Lives! Ben Smith & Byron Tau of Politico: conspiracy theories have already arisen. ...

     Matea Gold, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "Conspiracy theorists on both the left and right were quick to insist that Bin Laden was either still alive or had been dead for years, pouncing on the government's decision to slide the body of the world's most wanted man off a board into the Arabian Sea."

     Out There. Karen Garcia answers the conspiracy theorists. Good luck with that. Garcia has just IDed herself as a tool of the administration! She's been brainwashed. Or she's a CIA operative. Or something.

     Meanwhile, Helene Cooper of the New York Times reports that the White House is still weighing whether or not to release a photo of bin Laden, obviously dead with a visible bullet hole in his head. CW: Conspiracy Theory Editon: they're just really slow Photoshoppers.

Not bin Laden News

One example of why even a conservative-leaning Democrat is better to have in the White House than an avowed Republican. Robert Pear of the New York Times: "In a new effort to increase access to health care for poor people, the Obama administration is proposing a rule that would make it much more difficult for states to cut Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals. The rule could also put pressure on some states to increase Medicaid payment rates, which are typically lower than what Medicare and commercial insurance pay. Federal officials said Monday that the rule was needed to fulfill the promise of federal law, which says Medicaid recipients should have access to health care at least to the same extent as the general population."

Ben Pershing of the Washington Post: "The news of Osama bin Laden’s death may have consumed Capitol Hill Monday, but it didn’t alter House Republicans’ plans to continue their months-long quest to defund President Obama’s health-care plan. Unable to decapitate last year’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the GOP has decided instead to administer death by 1,000 cuts — with two more cuts coming this week."

John McKinnon of the Wall Street Journal: Republicans: Look, look! Rich people do pay more taxes than they used to. And 51 percent of the people are deadbeats. Democrats: Duh! because they're way richer than they used to be. Plus, they pay in a higher share of income in Social Security & Medicare taxes than rich people do. CW: I'd add that the poor & lower middle-class still pay a higher share of their income than do the rich in total taxes, when you figure in state & local taxes & usage taxes like oil & gas taxes.

Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times: "While [Warren] Buffett praised [David] Sokol in the statement announcing the resignation..., the day he issued the release, Berkshire called the Securities and Exchange Commission and briefed them on Mr. Sokol’s trades, which Mr. Buffett described to me as 'pretty damning evidence.' ... The S.E.C. is now investigating the matter.... In a statement after the Berkshire meeting, a lawyer for Mr. Sokol issued a statement, saying the stock trades did not violate the law or Berkshire policy."

News Ledes

** Washington Post: "The Obama administration is seeking to use the killing of Osama bin Laden to accelerate a negotiated settlement with the Taliban and hasten the end of the Afghanistan war, according to U.S. officials involved in war policy."

New York Times: "There have been no known specific or credible threats received since American troops killed Osama bin Laden this week, but on Tuesday security at public spaces — including mosques, synagogues, train stations and basketball arenas — remained at elevated levels. Although the Department of Homeland Security has not issued an alert, the agency remains at what the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, has called a 'heightened state of vigilance.' The State Department, on the other hand, has issued a worldwide travel alert to Americans.

President Obama met with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus this afternoon.

NBC News: "Osama bin Laden was not armed when a U.S. Navy SEAL raiding party confronted him during an assault on his compound in Pakistan, the White House said Tuesday." Update: New York Times story here.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner notifies Congress that he has begun to take "extraordinary measures" to circumvent exceeding the debt limit.

New York Times: the Army Corps of Engineers blew up part of the Mississippi River levee in Missouri to prevent flooding elsewhere.