Just the Beginning

I was walking our Jack Russell Terrier when I got the news.

It was a tad past 10:00 on a Sunday night when my cell phone rang.

It was my wife and she blurted the news out.

"BIN LADEN IS DEAD!"

I said one word, almost as loud as hers.

"WHAT?"

And that's how I found out that Osama bin Laden had been killed---on May 1, 2011.

I had my portable radio with me, so I immediately turned it on and scanned for some news, some confirmation---even though Mrs. Eno was watching TV coverage as she called me.

For the remainder of the walk---about 20 minutes---I listened on the radio as details of Bin Laden's erasure started to roll in.

The raid and subsequent killing of the Babe Ruth of terrorists was the kind of news that you remember where you were when you heard it.

So it's been a year; what has Bin Laden's death meant in that one year?

Well, now, with 2012 being an election year, you can guess at least part of the answer to that question.

The eradication of Bin Laden is sure to be a political football this summer and fall.



President Obama will, rightly, use the act to his benefit, along with the elimination of other key Al Qaeda operatives since he took the oath in January 2009.

Mitt Romney's camp will look to diminish Bin Laden's killing as something that any president would have done, if given the opportunity---i.e., if his intelligence folks were as razor sharp as Obama's.

Both sides run the risk of using Bin Laden's death too much.

Too much talking about it might seem like crowing; too much pooh-poohing will look like sour grapes.

Today, across the Internet, there are essays and analyses about the one-year anniversary of Bin Laden's killing and how it's affected the world stage.

There was even a piece about how the terrorism leader had been despondent in the weeks leading up to his death, supposedly depressed about Al Qaeda's direction.

Bin Laden, a sympathetic figure?

Hardly.

But Bin Laden's dour mood is not unusual for the evil men in world history.

Hitler took his own life. There's some question as to the fulfillment and true happiness in the lives of other various bad guys not long before their demise.

The realization that the goal of absolute power and "untouchable" status will not be realized, after all, is sometimes too much for these warped men to fathom.

But enough of the dime store psychology.

Osama Bin Laden has been dead one full year. And this is NOT the last time you will hear about it.

Fair warning.

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