Tuesday open thread: We got him

It was a truism of American politics that the Republican Party was tougher on security than the Democratic Party.

That illusion was shattered when former president George W. Bush ignored klaxon warnings that Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network were about to launch a major attack on American territory. It further deteriorated when Bush launched a war of choice in Iraq which had nothing to do with Al Qaeda and everything to do with his own father issues. And then it was buried deeper than a cave when Donald Trump freed five thousand Taliban fighters in order to grease a peace deal with the fundamentalist group.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, former President Barack Obama ordered the raid which killed bin Laden in 2011. And then this weekend, President Joe Biden ordered a drone strike which took out bin Laden's former number two—and his successor as chief of Al Qaeda—Zayman al-Zawahiri, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. In this strike, neither his family nor any civilians were harmed.

Republicans fluster and fulminate, but rarely accomplish anything which makes the world better. Meanwhile Democrats do the careful planning which leads to results. We've seen that in the past week with Democratic legislative successes. And we say that yesterday in the meting out of justice to the perpetrator of the world's deadliest terrorist attack.

Will this improve Pres. Biden's poll numbers? Perhaps. They began to nosedive after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which the media took as a personal affront. It mocked his assertion that even with no boots on the ground, the US would still pursue and destroy terrorist networks in the country. Yesterday's news proves that Pres. Biden was correct, and the media, as always, underestimated him.

But the poll numbers aren't really the point. Pres. Biden settled a blood debt. He brought another chapter of 9/11 to a close, and did it without a loss of American lives, or injury to Afghan civilians. He did what any good president should do. 

Thanks, Joe.