I have been watching cable news for the past three hours, and watching the conventional wisdom eviscerate the Kerry campaign with respect to the impact of the Osama Bin Laden story.
I do not think that inaction is an option here. Momentum is critical in a presidential election. At the same time, criticizing the president is very treacherous at this point, as it risks sounding like he is echoing bin Laden's taunting of GWB.
What Kerry needs is a strong, decisive plan that will contrast with Bush's failure to capture bin Laden, but do so in a way that criticizes him implicitly.
It is obvious to most that we never made a serious effort to secure Afghanistan, and our lack of resources on the ground allowed bin Laden to slip away. Proposing additional forces in Afghanistan is a real solution to the problem. Another 20,000 to 30,000 troops on the ground might make some real progress toward capturing bin Laden, and put some pressure on Pakistan to cooperate as well.