So for those wondering how Jon Stewart would react, you need not be disappointed. He hit it out of the park last night, and closed with a very poignant remark on the impact this will have.
I am way too close to this whole episode to be rational about this in any way, shape, or form. Last night was a good night for me. And not just for New York or D.C. or America, but for human people. The face of the Arab world in America's eyes for too long has been bin Laden, and now it is not. Now, the face is only the young people in Egypt, and Tunisia, and all the Middle Eastern countries around the world where freedom rises up.
Al-Qaeda's opportunity is gone. Al-Qaeda's opportunity is gone. For the last 10 years, al-Qaeda had the world's attention. They apparently wanted an ideology competition, and for all of our rights and wrongs, and the world's rights and worngs, all al-Qaeda seems to have come up with is, "Uh, all right, we'll kill some Americans. How about killing some British people? Uh, maybe bombing Yemen or something. Shoe bomb doesn't work? How about an underwear bomb?" They have nothing.
Can they still do damage? I'm sure. But we're back, baby. I went on Google Earth last night, take a look at the time-lapse footage of our Southern coast.
Not only did we get fully erect, our testicles descended.
We're back, baby!
Video and transcript below the fold.
We got a good show for you tonight. We got a really good show for you tonight. Our guest tonight, Philip K. Howard, he is filling in for our... we had an originally scheduled guest, Osama bin Laden, who is, uh.... (wild audience applause) At the time we thought it was a pretty special booking. And uh, I knew he would puss out.
Let me tell you how I heard the news of Osama bin Laden's demise. I'm watching Celebrity Apprentice. Now I'm watching it to see if Obama and Seth Meyers' absolute shellacking of Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday had left a visible mark. I'm watching this Apprentice episode, even though the episode had been taped prior to the Correspondents Dinner, the demolition of Trump at the Correspondents Dinner was so thorough, I thought it might actually supersede the dimensional rules of time and space, and leave a mark on future episodes of The Apprentice.
Well, all right, so on The Apprentice, just when it looked like the sad dark-haired lady was about to ritually sacrificed by the lady who used to ruin The View....
VOICE-OVER: This is an NBC News Special Report.
DAVID GREGORY; Good evening from Washington, I'm David Gregory. We will hear from the President of the United States, he will address the country....
Boom! What?? They break into Celebrity Apprentice! This is like 10:30 at night, out of nowhere, the President has an announcement. So immediately, you start thinking, there's only two things this could probably be. A) The President is interrupting Celebrity Apprentice to deliver more jokes, the ones that he had not quite finished about Donald Trump. He just popped up on Sunday and went like, "Oh fuck, that was a great one!" And like boom! He was just going to interrupt the show to get him some more. Or B), the more likely scenario, as Hollywood has taught us, when a black President interrupts your show, a meteor is headed towards the Earth.
So, I start flipping around, I'm flipping around, right? I'm flipping around, it's clear all the news people know what this is, but they can't say it yet. And this goes on for like half an hour.
WOLF BLITZER: It's going to be the President addressing the nation from the East Room at the White House. We can only speculate on what that might be.
DAVID GREGORY: What I've learned from government officials, this is the result of an incident that the United States initiated.
GERALDO RIVERA: We think... we think... what? What do we think?
MIKE VIQUIERA: A CIA operation... uh, can I say overseas? Can I say it has something to do with something overseas? Yes. A grave, serious CIA operation overseas.
"Can I... can I say that it involves a bearded dialysis patient? Can I say... can I say it's more extremist than a breadbox? Can I... no?"
For God's sake, Seacrest doesn't draw out an elimination reveal this long! Now I know the President wanted to break the news himself. But at least, couldn't the news let us know that we could all relax? All we knew was, the President was going to tell us something about national security. It's like when your mom leaves you that super-early morning voice-mail consisting of "It's your mother, call me." And that's it. And you don't know if it's malignant, or did the neighbor's kid get into Brown? You don't have to say exactly what it is, but just go, "And by the way, don't worry, it's good news."
But then, finally, at 11:35pm Eastern Justice Time, the President of the United States.
BARACK OBAMA: Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden...
Mm, nice, like that. You know what, let's give him a little musical theater vibe on there.
Yeah, that's nice. I'll give you that. We had a lot of fans here of my less than impressive movie career, let's... why don't we....
Big Deady. There you go. As an American, as a New Yorker, you felt like the news couldn't get any better. And then it did.
BARACK OBAMA: Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
What?? Not only did we kill bin Laden, we killed him in Abbottabad? Abbottabad sounds like the name most New Yorkers would have invented for the fictional place they would have loved to kill bin Laden. Abbottabad. Abbottabad. There's no question in my mind.
(in Brooklyn accent) "Hey, I'll tell you what I would do. You give me a gun, you drop me into fuckin' Abbottabad or whatever they call their fuckin' cities over there, I'll give him a shot. I'll go over there. I'll go to fuckin' Abbottabad and I'll shoot him in his Abbotta-badda-bingos! You know what I'm doin' about? Boom!"
It's like a gift to New York. I gotta tell you, a United States Special Ops raid to get bin Laden in Abbottabad, New Yorkers couldn't be more satisfied.
DAVID MARTIN: Bin Laden has been buried at sea from a U.S. Navy warship.
You just threw him off a boat? Shark-infested waters or anything? Couldn't we at least have considered, you know, carbonite?
Maybe done one of them? Put it up in the West Wing? Do a little wall hangers?
I suppose I should be expressing some ambivalence...
I suppose I should be... I suppose I should be expressing some ambivalence about the targeted killing of another human being, and yet... uh, no. I just want details. What look did he give when bin Laden realized that the helicopters overhead were not giving traffic and weather updates? Ya think he pulled a Culkin?
Maybe he gave a little more dramatic chipmunk.
I mean, believe me, he wasn't expecting it. You know he was living in some staid and upscale Pakistani suburb for some time when we got him. You know, this guy's out there preaching suicide bombings and jihad, pretending he's Gandalf wandering the frontier, all the while living like one of the housewives of Orange County.
Of course, on any occasion like this, there will be people who will try and give us "perspective". Eh, this is not the time.
5/2/2011:
WOLF BLITZER: There will be some, including al-Qaeda supporters, al-Qaeda affiliates, who will not be happy about this, and no doubt are already plotting revenge.
REP. PETER KING, R-NY: As satisfied as we are right now, we also realize that this increases the threat to the United States.
ZAIN VERJEE: In the short term, there could be some kind of reprisal attack.
Yes, we shouldn't have killed him. Now the terrorists are going to want to attack us. But you know what, even when they do, you know who won't see it? Bin Laden, 'cause we shot out his eyes, and now he lives in a pineapple under the sea.
I am way too close to this whole episode to be rational about this in any way, shape, or form. Last night was a good night for me. And not just for New York or D.C. or America, but for human people. The face of the Arab world in America's eyes for too long has been bin Laden, and now it is not. Now, the face is only the young people in Egypt, and Tunisia, and all the Middle Eastern countries around the world where freedom rises up.
Al-Qaeda's opportunity is gone. Al-Qaeda's opportunity is gone. For the last 10 years, al-Qaeda had the world's attention. They apparently wanted an ideology competition, and for all of our rights and wrongs, and the world's rights and wrongs, all al-Qaeda seems to have come up with is, "Uh, all right, we'll kill some Americans. How about killing some British people? Uh, maybe bombing Yemen or something. Shoe bomb doesn't work? How about an underwear bomb?" They have nothing.
Can they still do damage? I'm sure. But we're back, baby. I went on Google Earth last night, take a look at the time-lapse footage of our Southern coast.
Not only did we get fully erect, our testicles descended.
We're back, baby! We'll be right back.
The Daily Show correspondents also reported on bin Laden's death. Stephen Colbert also covered it, and then remembered a carefree pre-9/11 world where the most dangerous thing was shark attacks.