Progressives Conflicted Over 'Assassination' of Osama Bin Laden

I've written a couple of times now on John Yoo's thoughts on the Bin Laden killing. Recall that Yoo argues that President Obama had choices. U.S. forces could have gone in with a much heavier contingent for the primary purpose of capturing Bin Laden. We captured Saddam Hussein, for example. We could have taken Bin Laden as well. And, sure, we now know that Bin Laden's (purported) resistance was the (potentially lethal) fact of a couple of guns within arm's reach, and perhaps a suicide bomber's vest that could have been detonated as the commandos stormed the upper chambers of the compound. But given the administration's failure to close Guantanamo, and its backtracking on civilian trials for al Qaeda's leadership, it's entirely within reason to consider that President Obama frankly didn't want to deal with it. Screw it. Kill the f**ker and be done. The truth is, John Yoo's offered one of the most compelling explanations of the operation yet. And now the folks at Balloon Juice are freakin' out over his hypothesis, chest thumping at how the killing of Bin Laden has allegedly caused conservative heads to explode. See "Only Real Men Torture Folks…" (via Memeorandum and Talking Points Memo). Again, all of this is about claiming credit. The left's hypocrisy on national security is unmatched, and Republicans are going to have an enormous opportunity to clarify the debate in 2012. Indeed, it's not the idiotic dolts at Balloon Juice who represent the long-term progressive stand on this, but folks like Michael Moore. The communist filmmaker was on Piers Morgan's last night gnashing his teeth about how horrible it is that Americans killed Bin Laden. But not for the reasons that John Yoo identifies. No, Moore's just unhappy that U.S. forces would actually kill our foremost enemy. More than unhappy, in fact. He's completely dejected, "The world's a better place without him," Moore says, but "it's not necessarily the way" he would have done it:

At least Moore's honest about this. Most progressives are just too busy spiking the football to let both their rank hypocrisy and epic fail sink in. See Dana Loesch for more on that: "In the Left’s Rush to Politicize Bin Laden They Overlook Their Hypocrisy."

RELATED: At the Rhetorican, "White House Messaging Fail: Farenheit 2011?"

And Christopher Taylor, "The Vindication of Former President Bush?"