Bin Laden's death a major morale boost for U.S. and its president

As Barack Obama went before the nation and the world to announce the killing "at my direction" of Osama bin Laden, a snowballing crowd of revelers outside the White House broke into the Star Spangled Banner.

On Facebook, "friends" reached out to "friends" to celebrate the news.

The death of terrorism's most-feared figure, whose bearded mug has lorded menacingly over America for more than a decade, is a major morale booster for a nation that has been feeling threatened and disrespected for too long now.

The credit for the success will and must go to Mr. Obama. Indeed, the President stressed in his short address his insistence on making the pursuit of Osama bin Laden a top priority since taking office. Few Americans would have thought as much before Sunday night.

In a conference call following the President's statement, senior administration officials noted that Mr. Obama personally chaired "no fewer than five" National Security Council meetings since mid-March on the mission to pursue Mr. bin Laden.

For a President whose first two years in office served to raise nagging questions about his commitment and ability to wage war on terrorism - remember the Christmas Day bomber and the radio silence from the White House? - it should dispel doubts about whether he has the nerve and steel for the job.

If, as administration officials insisted Sunday night, the death of bin Laden puts al-Qaeda on a "path to decline that will be difficult to reverse," Mr. Obama will have accomplished with silent determination what a breast-beating George W. Bush could not, despite his most public obsession with terrorism.

It is no small irony that it is Mr. Obama, not Mr. Bush, who got to declare: "On nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al-Qaeda's terror: Justice has been done."

Though Mr. Obama's approval rating is likely to soar in coming days, it would be hazardous to conclude that the death of Mr. bin Laden makes the President unbeatable in 2012. After all, George H. W. Bush was riding a post-Persian Gulf War high in polls about this time in 1991. He lost the election barely 18 months later. Then again, using history to predict the future is just as hazardous.

Mr. Obama's presidency is suddenly looking more solid by the day.