Those who rule and manipulate by fear need a bogeyman.

... and has been for years--probably of natural causes like kidney disease. Although Bush stated he wanted him dead or alive, he much prefers to have him alive, because there is no mileage in a dead public enemy number one.

How do I know this? Of course I don't really, but do you really think that with a multi-million dollar bounty on his head that rival warlords would not be leaking news of his presence if they really knew anything?

Then he was killed.

Then a tape of him admitting involvement was released with someone who didn't look like him.

Since then there have been fake audio and video of him of low quality.

Newsflash! They have good cheap HD cameras in the mideast just like we do. Funny how he doesn't use any of them.

CGI will take care of that when we need him next.

Then he was killed.

Then a tape of him admitting involvement was released with someone who didn't look like him.

Since then there have been fake audio and video of him of low quality.

Newsflash! They have good cheap HD cameras in the mideast just like we do. Funny how he doesn't use any of them.

CGI will take care of that when we need him next.

There really is no need to pursue the dead.

I'm also a lifelong Republican and I was against this thing before it was a thing, when we were still in Afghanistan and our erstwhile Idiot-in-Chief had only begun eyeing Iraq. It's taken you this long to evolve from one of the Living Dead into a Thinking Republican? Where were you seven years ago?

I know, one must respect the old party line, especially when it's the line handed you by our Grand Old Party. Not good enough this time, however. While I'm always happy to see a Republican wake up to having been told, as in the movie "Animal House": "You fucked up. You trusted us", I still find this party-before-sanity thing infuriating. The long tale here explaining how it took you all this time to notice the house was on fire just irritates me more.

Your duty is clear, Smerconish. You and the rest of us who are still awake or are waking up now have to wrest this party from the hands of the gang of swine who have conveniently dodged bringing us the head of Osama Bin Laden while at the same time have kept busy gutting our constitution, our economy and our national image as that "shining city on a hill." It's not shining -- the light is from the flames!

Obama is our one and only chance to save this country and, oddly enough, to save our party as well. It would be the required coupe de grace to the entire neocon movement to elect a decent, thinking human being as President, elect a Democratic majority to Congress, and to generally destroy our party in order that it might someday be rebuilt. Maybe. And "someday" doesn't matter right now anyway, because at the rate we're going we'll have gone off the edge of the newly-flat earth anyhow unless we grow some brains and balls and a little humility and quit talking and just do it. Vote for Obama, support the man, support your country, be an American first and a Republican second if at all. Screw party politics. The ship of state has run aground. It's about time you and people like you smelled smoke. Just don't waste any more inches on explaining what it was like to wake up and notice your country was missing. Quit explaining and act. Now!

Has George Bush done a lousy job on the hunt for Bin Laden? Kind of hard to argue otherwise, isn't it? He gave the game away early on with his infamous statement that he doesn't really think about Bin Laden very often. Funny, because I certainly do, and it is not my job to catch him.

That said, it's tough to conclude that Sen. Obama would do any better. Recall that Joe Biden noted, during the primaries, that he worked with Barack every day in the Senate and had not heard so much as a peep from Barack on possible options or tactics in Iraq. Sure, we all know Barack gave an anti-war speech in 2002 to his 98% Democrat constituency on the south side of Chicago. Beyond that, there isn't much to commend him as a guru on foreign policy.

You also have to recall that Barack made his famous "I will bomb Pakistan" declaration against the backdrop of his stubborn and foolish refusal to repudiate a debate declaration that he would take a rogues-round-the-world tour his first year in office. It was a classic get-tough reaction that was made for political expediency, and cannot be taken seriously as an indicator of future foreign policy. If Barack has a better idea on how to catch Bid Laden, I would like to hear it.

In short, Barack and McCain are not distinguishable on Bid Laden. If you are a lifelong Republican looking for a reason to vote for Obama, you'll need a more convincing reason than this.

I would love to have this level of skepticism and critical thinking applied to the Sarah Palin VP selection by Republicans like this. Surely there are some out there who wincing in shame at the nomination of this bag of pink cotton candy.

Who the hell do you think you're fooling, you just got several pages to pump up the former administation in their war on terror, and demand the next administation do more? Screw you pal, I've read the playbook. Well suppose that Bush comes up with Bin Laden, boy howdy, you have the ticket. Not one other issue to explain why you would vote Democrat, you're just thinking about. Get off my sidewalk jerk.

Thanks for an incisive and well-argued article, Michael. Reading your writing makes it pretty clear you're a member of the Reality-Based Community, which leads me to join my fellow fence-jumper AJCalhoun in saying, "What took you so long?"

I switched sides at the end of 2003 (I voted for Bush in '00, Kerry in '04). The distraction of Iraq from the real fight in Afghanistan led me to the fence, finding no WMDs and the utter disgrace of Abu Ghraib made me jump over. But we all reach our conclusions at our own pace, and letting go is harder for some of us than others, so I say: Welcome!