As a supplement to Stand Strong's diary about people denying Obama credit for the kill, let's not forget this key fact. . . it was Bush who in July 2006, disbanded the CIA group that had the mission of hunting down bin Laden:
The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday.
The former head of that group said the move was a mistake:
Michael Scheuer, a former senior C.I.A. official who was the first head of the unit, said the move reflected a view within the agency that Mr. bin Laden was no longer the threat he once was.
Mr. Scheuer said that view was mistaken.
Instead, at the same time, Bush was content to use bin Laden as a bogeyman:
By 2006, on the stump for his fellow Republicans, Bush was citing bin Laden extensively. The president cast bin Laden as the oracular leader of a global movement, and warned of the possibility of an Islamic caliphate "stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia" -- an unsubstantiated fantasy with only one thing going for it: It served the political agendas of both men.
As stated in Huff Post, "Obama took a different tack."
"Shortly after taking office," the president explained Sunday night, "I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network."
That, and lots of other facts pointed out in the Huff Post article -- Obama Succeeded Where Bush Failed: Osama Bin Laden Rhetoric And Reality -- show why Obama's actions were successful, whereas Bush's were not.