That question asked of McClellan doesn't surprise me. The left just might flip like a breaker, straight from "Bush can't catch Osama!" to "Osama's caught, terrorism is gone forever, threat's gone!" By all means, bin Laden and al Qaeda should be put own. But this political conflict seems inevitable. We'll see if the administration's communication of the challenge - the permeation of terrorism in repressed societies - will have been successful.

I think Osama's long dead, but when they find his lair, I hope they find incontrovertible proof of treason by the Billary's

The DenBeste rule regarding hot breaking news still holds.

Stephen,

Bad analogy on the WaPO story. That was Clinton's beauracacry on the case. I doubt Bush is consulting his lawyers and taking opinion polls before making decisions.

Good luck on the baby-making. Steph and I had our first 2 months ago, and my life has never had more meaning.

Amen, Brian, and congratulations. (My wife is pregant with our second.) Best wishes and good luck, VP!

Review that WaPo story carefully and avoid putting decisions made in 1997 in the context of 2004. The Clinton NSC was operating on suspicion more than anything else about bin Laden at that point. We wanted him, but we wanted him for trial, because the Janet Reno squad was out ahead in the counterterrorism turf war. A U.S.-financed raid that killed a bunch of women and children and missed bin Laden would have been a disaster; lacking the knowledge of what he was really planning, and the horrible events that were to come, it didn't seem worth the risk. Now, of course, the decision is an obvious one.

To make a slightly tortured analogy: Kerry's decision to join the Navy in 1966 was an easy one. Everyone was doing it! Patriotic duty! At graduation day in 1968, it was a tougher call. The Air Guard seemed a better decision for President Bush. Any doubt that it would have been the opposite if it had been Bush who graduated in 66 and Kerry who graduated in 68?

And, for the record, the lawyers have been fouling up good ops on the ground for decades, and they continue to do so to this day. Operation Enduring Freedom was hamstrung a couple of times by DOD lawyers attached to CENTCOM (we missed Mullah Omar once as a result), though that has been somewhat reconciled by now.

Also: just because the White House has no information that bin Laden has been captured doesn't mean he isn't surrounded in one of the Stans. . . . they are smart enough not to say they have him until they actually have him.

My response as to where to find Osama Bin Laden is the same now as it was right after 9-11 - Go Underground, Young Man! Afghanistan is to SW Asia what Libya is to Colonel Qhaddafi's self-proclaimed "great rivers" - a huge complex or network of natural and artificially constructed, SECRET CAVES, TUNNELS, BASINS, etc. intended to hide covert activities from American and Western overhead satellites! Like the Japanese inside their myriad Pacific Island defenses during WW2, they can potentially work, live, and fight there for extensive periods of time - with the US and Britain in control of Iraq and Afghanistan, putting pressure on Iran proper, and US CIA-SpecFors-Delta-TF 121 looking all over for him around the ME, we should not underestimate Osama's willingness or capacity to reenter Iran andor Saudi Arabia by going around where the US and Britain are NOT, ie CENTRAL ASIA! As for former POTUS Bill Clinton, establishment two-party politics saved his butt from removal from office, only to for all Americans to see him in the forefront of domestic and global ANTI-AMERICANISM, PC of course!? Don't forget that both he and his wife's campaigns were, and still are, being investigated for accepting illegal or dubious $$$ contributions from both major and rogue states, and radical, pro-terror groups or orgs with an anti-American, anti-Western, andor anti-Israeli militant agendum! THE SUPER-PC CLINTONS ARE FRIENDS TO NO ONE, NOT EVEN FELLOW REGISTERED DEMOCRATS, SAVE FOR THEIR OWN PERSONAL POWER, COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM, AND COMMUNIST VICTORY AND DOMINATION OVER AMERICA AND THE WORLD! Their alleged "CENTRISM" OR "UNITARIANISM" is just a PC disguise whereby they can covertly, deceptively, and alteriorily manipulate all sides and camps, and work both for and against America's two-Party establishment and America itself, for "CREEPING" [COMMUNIST-CONTROLLED/MANAGED COMMAND]SOCIALISM, A SOCIALIST AMERICA, and SOCIALIST AMERICA INEVITABLY AND PERMANENTLY SUBJUGATED-SUBORNED UNDER COMMUNIST-CONTROLLED SOCIALIST OWG! According to the LEFTNET-LEFTBLOGS, many Lefty posters and advocates desire the former by 2015 NLT 2020, with hyperpower America's GDP to GO DOWN - weirdly, mysteriously, and without detailed explanation how - to a paltry circa $35.0T by 2050 [oopsie me, ala BRITNEY, the Leftperts say go UP to circa $35.0T by 2050] !?