The concept of celebrating a death can elicit some ambivalence, even the death of a murderer and enemy like bin Laden.
I find it strange that one political party is accusing the other, at present, of "politicizing" bin Laden's death. Bin Laden was, first and foremost, a political player. Terrorism is much more of a political weapon than anything else; it is a means to use violence to elicit a reaction for political ends. That 9/11 was a political act cannot be disputed. That our collective reactions to this event may or may not have been exactly what bin Laden wanted, I will leave that to an historical discussion years hence. But when you have questions about differences in policy to achieve an end -- and rallying the polity behind the methods to achieve those ends - that is politics.
When you have two clear stark contrasts, made in the political arena, by the leading candidates for President of the United States, before bin Laden's death, that already put bin Laden into the arena of politics.
I can intellectualize my reactions about bin Laden's death, but the id, the initial emotional reaction to his death, to edit that would be dishonest. I was relieved, I was happy, I personally felt it as a sudden break with the downward spiral in our national momentum abroad. Symbolic, yes. Did it have practical consequences? yes. If politics is the art of getting things done through persuasion, whether of voters, the hearts and minds of people worldwide, or a recalcitrant congressman buttonholed in a cloak room, then surely the culmination of a decade's worth of blood and treasure in the death of one of the country's most notorious enemies is a supreme political moment, not just some national milestone some choose to view, selectively, through political lenses.
The issue, after all, was not a disagreement about whether bin Laden should be "gotten". It was a specific disagreement about how to do this. That was, and is, a political issue.
When thinking about this, on the eve of the first anniversary of bin Laden's death by force majeure, I keep returning to that initial reaction. Below the fold I've assembled a number of clips of the reaction, without news organization editing. There are many things to learn by reliving these, and perhaps not all of them are celebratory or laudatory. But these are honest reactions from across the spectrum in America.
And to be honest, a year later, I still find myself reacting to Osama bin Laden's death as follows: fuck him. Let's get on with being a better America.
This is all raw footage - no newsroom editing.
Outside the White House, shortly after the announcement:
At West Point:
At the Air Force academy:
At the US Naval academy:
Aboard a NYC Subway:
In Times Square:
At the WTC site in NYC:
On Boston Common:
At Citizens' Bank Park at the Phillies-Mets game:
At a Jane's Addiction concert:
At a Rascall Flatts concert:
At at WWE Wrestling match:
At Boston College:
At Illinois State University:
At Iowa State:
At Penn State:
Again outside the White House, later that night: