Posthumously, Osama Boosts Obama

The fishes had barely begun nibbling at the corpse of Osama bin Laden when politicos already began assessing the impact that his demise, indirectly at the hands of President Obama, would have on Obama’s current popularity and political prospects.

The bipartisan come-together in a celebration of bin Laden’s extermination has been remarkable for this modern era of hyper-partisan politics. Obama even invited George W. Bush to participate in a kumbaya moment scheduled for the president’s visit to Ground Zero on Thursday, although Bush demurred.

But to some extent at least, where you stand even on this issue depends on where you sit.

Some polls released on Wednesday, by the New York Times and Washington Post among others, showed a definitive bump in Obama’s current standing among Americans after Navy Seals dispatched the terrorist mastermind.

Yet other surveys, most notably by the right-leaning Rasmussen Reports, showed that the president wasn’t getting much immediate political credit for taking care of bin Laden.Continue reading...