The TIME cover says it all: Bin Laden is dead. Generally, the reaction was one of muted celebration, with the exception of a few raucous street parties in DC and NYC. President Obama took a considerable political risk by ordering a commando attack instead of a bombing raid. The high-level professionalism of the Navy SEALs who ran OBL to ground and killed him is beyond reproach. Thank God, most of us feel, this country can still do something right. And thank God most of us appear to feel that this was the right thing to do. Of course, there are the instinctive naysayers and hand-wringers, reflexive anti-Americans on the left, diehard Obama haters on the right, who muddy the waters. But the majority see this, accurately, as a victory for the good guys. Christopher Hitchens famously said, after 9/11, that suddenly everything became crystal clear to him: Henceforth, it would be a fight to the death between everything he loved and everything he hated. I feel that way, too. Osama Bin Laden was part of everything I hate. Good riddance.
