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Hope at last
You saw the meme buzzing around the Net on Monday: Barack Obama, in dark sunglasses, smirking: "SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO GET YOU A COPY OF MY BIRTH CERTIFICATE," it read, in I Can Has Cheezburger all-caps. "I WAS TOO BUSY KILLING OSAMA BIN LADEN."

You saw the meme buzzing around the Net on Monday: Barack Obama, in dark sunglasses, smirking: "SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO GET YOU A COPY OF MY BIRTH CERTIFICATE," it read, in I Can Has Cheezburger all-caps. "I WAS TOO BUSY KILLING OSAMA BIN LADEN."

In real life, Obama's oh-shit announcement, confirming that bin Laden was shot dead by American forces Sunday, was laced with sound bites: "The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al Qaeda." "We must — and we will — remain vigilant." "We will be relentless in defense of our citizens." "Justice has been done."

In the months ahead, Obama will be wise to remember the meme — to adopt something of the Web joke's wit and swagger. Do it with humility, sure. But for the sake of the country's progressives, Obama needs to take credit where credit is due. It's not simply lucky timing that resulted in bin Laden being found on Obama's watch. It was a result of the president's specific, pragmatic focus.

The Bush administration ignored the threat from bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks. And within days of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center, the Bush administration was at Camp David plotting how to get bin Laden by attacking . . . Saddam Hussein. So Bush didn't aggressively pursue bin Laden in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains in late 2001, which allowed the fucker to get away. Then in 2005, the Bush administration disbanded the CIA task force hunting bin Laden.

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