How to Ruin a Moment of National Triumph

It will be amazing if President Obama manages to convert what should be very "good" news for himself into yet another piece of evidence that he is temperamentally unsuited for the presidency.

No, I'm not talking about the fact that it took him 16 hours to decide whether to proceedwith the operation to kill bin Laden, as he "slept on it" while the military waited.

I'm talking about his graceless and clumsy efforts to politicize what's good news for the country -- so that it becomes, above all, good news for him. As the Washington Times put it ,the President showed "no class" by failing to mention President Bush as he (who came to prominence disparaging many of the techniques ultimately responsible) fulsomely praised himself.

Even worse is his administration's attempts to spin one of the hard calls routinely made by war-time presidents into some kind of "John Wayne moment" . . . and the almost total overlooking of the military contribution that enabled the President to bask in the glow of the outcome. At least some in the press are noticing, too.