Rich Lowry asks the question:

In an ideal world, the Navy SEALs would have been given the order to take bin Laden alive, if possible. He would have been taken to a secret location for interrogation and waterboarded if necessary to break him quickly. Every possible lead would have been wrung from him and hunted down. When he was no longer of use, he’d have been put before a military commission and executed.

In other words, he should have been handled in the same way the Bush administration planned to treat detainees in the first urgent days of the War on Terror. Of course, the Obama administration deems coercive interrogation un-American, and the military commissions — partly because of the administration’s hostility — are a shambles. There remained only one good option for bin Laden: a bullet in the eye.

Perhaps killing bin Laden, a potent symbol, was the best outcome regardless. The suddenness and finality of it may prove a devastating blow to al-Qaeda’s morale and prestige. But targeted killing shouldn’t be the only tool in our arsenal.

I find it bizarre that the same administration that thinks that illegal combatants should be mirandized has no compunction about extrajudicial assassination of them, whether with drones or SEALs.

[Update a while later]

“The SEALs had to kill bin Laden to keep him out of the hands of Eric Holder.”

As a reminder, here’s the Hall of Shame — Republicans who voted to confirm him:

Alexander (R-TN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Chambliss (R-Ga)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hatch (R-UT)
Isakson (R-GA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lugar (R-IN)
McCain (R-AZ)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Sessions (R-AL)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Voinovich (R-OH)

…in Pakistan.

Unfortunately, the man in the White House is no Gary Cooper.

“…wets its little panties over bin Laden.”

“You authorized a risky operation to find and kill Osama bin Laden. Following your orders, a SEAL team shot him through the eye and the chest. Imagine that your successor is an even more left-wing Democrat than you are. Or imagine that he/she is a libertarian. Either might assert that the operation violated the law in some way. Would you approve of a Justice Department investigation into the actions of the SEALs? Do you think it be okay if, under the next administration, they will be obliged to hire lawyers and worry about their own and the their families’ futures? If not, will you instruct Eric Holder to call off the dogs who are currently investigating the CIA for interrogating the terrorists who led you to Osama bin Laden?”

That would require him to have some kind of consistent set of decent personal and political principles. Of course, the thought of a Democrat more left wing than him succeeding him is kind of frightening.

How about releasing the order to take out bin Laden?

If it exists, that is.

Also, a tale of two speeches — one from a narcissist, one from…something else.