The LuLac Edition #1578, May 4th, 2011

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WRITE ON WEDNESDAY

ONE DEFINING MOMENT

By GLENN THRUSH & CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN

Killing Osama bin Laden isn’t just an important moment in Barack Obama’s presidency — it’s the moment of his presidency, those around Obama say.
The daring military operation that eliminated the radical Islamist behind the worst terror attack in U.S. history has provided Obama, so often snake-bitten by external events, with that rarest of opportunities: a chance to unite a divided country around an indisputable victory while redefining his complicated, contradictory first term as a success.
“Bin Laden is the single greatest thing in his presidency so far to feed into his long game,” said a senior Democratic operative, referring to Obama’s effort to portray himself as a responsible adult surrounded by political toddlers.
Good fortune isn’t something West Wingers have come to expect after two-plus years of economic shock, a BP oil spill, raging unemployment, the Middle East in turmoil and record gas prices.
Obama’s aides were stunned Sunday night when the chants of “USA!” began wafting into the West Wing: They simply weren’t used to the kind of universal praise their boss has gotten after successfully ending the long hunt for bin Laden. But his team, led by David Plouffe, the 2008 campaign manager who is now a senior adviser, immediately grasped the possibilities presented to their boss, and saw the unexpected success as fulfillment of Obama’s long-ago campaign promise to bring bin Laden to justice.
Now Obama’s aides have a story to tell and they are telling it in Technicolor.
On Monday, officials portrayed bin Laden’s demise as a direct result of the commander in chief’s hands-on leadership — so much for the “leading from the rear” description of him in a recent New Yorker story on his foreign policy, and the portrayal of Obama as an over-his-head novice in Libya.
Obama, senior administration officials say, watched events in real time from the Situation Room on Sunday, keenly aware of the huge risk he incurred sending troops into a well-defended compound with no guarantee of bin Laden’s presence.
“He’s a very calm and sober guy,” said one aide who was with Obama on Sunday. “He didn’t betray a lot of emotion. He was very quiet. He didn’t speak much during that period at all.”
When it was clear bin Laden had been killed, Obama turned to those around him and calmly declared: “We got him, we got him guys,” — before expressing concern about the safety of the strike team, the person said.
In the short term, Obama has been given a boost just in time for his battle with congressional Republicans over the deficit and the debt ceiling. By defining the bin Laden raid as a chance to rekindle the bipartisan spirit present after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — as he has repeatedly since Sunday night — he is practically daring the GOP to shatter the new era of good feeling during this week’s tough negotiations over the deficit.
At a bipartisan dinner Monday night at the White House, Obama made the case for comity, the bedrock of his reelection pitch to independents in 2012.
“Obviously we’ve all had disagreements and differences in the past. I suspect we’ll have them again in the future,” he said after a day of rapid-fire disclosures about the bloody firefight at bin Laden’s compound 35 miles north of Islamabad.
“But last night, as Americans learned that the United States had carried out an operation that resulted in the capture and death of Osama bin Laden, we” — and here he was interrupted by applause — “you know, I think we experienced the same sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. We were reminded again that there is a pride in what this nation stands for, and what we can achieve, that runs far deeper than party, far deeper than politics.”
The political possibilities are even richer for Obama in the long term: To his controversial record of disputed accomplishment — health care reform, the Wall Street overhaul and extension of the Bush-era tax cuts — he now adds a visceral triumph easier for the American public to embrace.
And that cuts against the GOP argument that Obama is too weak, indecisive and liberal to warrant a second term in office.
“It certainly is a plus in the short term and a nice boost, coming at a good time because of the negotiations over the debt limit and budget,” said Norman Ornstein, a scholar with the American Enterprise Institute. “You get a president who looks strong and tough and manages to do something that has eluded us, including his predecessor, for 10 years.”
Senior administration officials filled in the narrative, highlighting that Obama had the choice of three options — go in on the ground, bomb the site, or wait.
On Friday morning, hours after his advisers detailed and debated the options, Obama informed them to move ahead with the riskiest one: a ground assault. “It’s a go,” Obama told four advisers, including Chief of Staff Bill Daley and counterterrorism chief John Brennan, moments before he took off in Marine One for Alabama.
They had planned to brief him again on the options, but Obama had made up his mind, said a senior administration official.
But even Democrats realize the bump in the polls Obama is very likely to see in the coming days will be transitory and has no chance of permanence until oil prices and unemployment rates decline.
When asked how long a new Obama honeymoon might last, a senior Democratic strategist replied: “How long does it take USA Today/Gallup to come out with his new favorable/unfavorable ratings and his new strong leader numbers? Take that, then add a week. … After that, it’s over.”
Republicans are looking to de-link the bin Laden raid from Obama’s economic record and say Sunday’s news doesn’t diminish their resolve to push him towards deeper budget cuts and deficit reduction.
Unlike the pursuit of bin Laden, “there are real differences” on the debt limit, said GOP pollster David Winston, an adviser to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
“There were minimal differences between President Obama and President Bush on Osama bin Laden, and over time, as you go back, President Clinton, as well,” Winston said. “So the question is what started there, a general sense of agreement of what the objectives are. When there is that sort of agreement in terms of objectives, the possibilities are there.”
“Can, in fact, the president and the Congress get to that level of agreement?”
Winston said Republicans believe that killing bin Laden “was a good thing to happen for the country, and trying to translate this into political capital, for either side, misses the point.”
And a top adviser to House GOP leaders said there may be limits to the president’s pitch that unity on bin Laden can translate into smoother going on the budget fight.
“The 9/11 attacks brought out the best in our people and our nation’s leaders during a time of terrible tragedy,” the adviser said. “And there is no doubt that the American people would like its leaders in Washington to come together again now to address the pressing issues of the day — namely anemic economic growth and unacceptably high unemployment.
“But coming together requires both political parties to admit reality in order to find common ground and move forward, something we just haven’t seen so far from Democrat leaders in Washington who remain committed to their traditional tax-and-spend agenda.”
Democrats disagree.
It may seem like an awkward pivot, but they think Obama can leverage the bin Laden success into momentum that will force the GOP into accepting a grand compromise on the debt ceiling — or run the risk of appearing partisan at a moment when the president is casting bipartisanship as a patriotic virtue.
Recapturing the spirit of September 2001 — and applying that unity to 2011 — is the dominant White House talking point of the past 24 hours. To make that link explicit, aides said Obama is considering a trip to Ground Zero — the site of the demolished World Trade Center in New York targeted by bin Laden.
For the most part, Republicans — from likely presidential candidates Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney to former Vice President Dick Cheney — praised Obama’s handling of the raid.
“All of the hours of arguing over budgeting and the things we debate at times all get washed away when it comes to getting the No. 1 bad guy in the world,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, told ABC News.
Rogers said he and other members of the committee were first told about the bin Laden compound in January, shortly after he became chairman when Republicans took leadership of the House.
“We were briefed all along the way,” Rogers added. “I give the administration credit on making the decision on going to act when they saw what was a good piece of intelligence.”
But some Republicans, like Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, seemed to offer back slaps to everyone involved in the operation except the president.
“I want to express my deepest gratitude to the men and women of the U.S. military and intelligence community,” Bachmann, a possible 2012 GOP presidential candidate, said without mentioning Obama. “Their persistence and dedicated service has yielded success in a mission that has gripped our nation since the terrible events of 9/11. … It is my hope that this is the beginning of the end of Shariah-compliant terrorism.”
For all of Washington’s talk of politics, the sheer drama of Sunday’s action in Pakistan seemed to rivet Obama friend and foe alike. The president’s top anti-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, held a rapt audience of reporters spellbound for an hour Monday with his dramatic account of the bin Laden mission and the near-disastrous mechanical failure that almost scuttled it.
Obama, however, seemed to take it all in stride.
Prior to addressing the nation just before midnight on Sunday, he walked slowly through the colonnade, listening the cheers from Pennsylvania Avenue that so surprised his staff.
After the speech, he shook a few hands and slapped a few backs. That, said one of his top advisers, was as close as Obama got to celebrating.
This Article appeared on Politico.com.