The long-awaited retribution against al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden for the Sept. 11 attacks likely will strengthen President Barack Obama's hand in pursuing both his foreign policy and domestic goals.
"The fact that he got Osama bin Laden is something that's going to be a very quick and powerful talking point right up to the 2012 election," said John Ullyot, a Republican strategist and former spokesman for the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Given the success of the operation, President Obama has clear and undisputed credentials" in the national security area.
Rivals and allies alike offered congratulations to the administration for the U.S. raid that killed bin Laden yesterday in Pakistan.
Bush, Obama's Republican predecessor, called the mission "a momentous success" and "a victory for America."
Former Vice President Dick Cheney praised "President Obama and the members of his national security team."
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, one of the Republicans who may run against him next year, also included Obama among those deserving credit, offering "congratulations to our intelligence community, our military and the president."
The timing of bin Laden's death bolsters Obama's standing as he begins negotiations with congressional Republicans on a long-term deficit reduction package and on legislation to raise the national debt ceiling. He is scheduled to have a dinner with bipartisan congressional leaders at the White House and Vice President Joe Biden opens budget negotiations May 5.
For Obama — who last week released his birth certificate to quiet critics who questioned his presidential eligibility and who, as a White House candidate in 2008, fended off false rumors that he was a Muslim — his role in ordering the operation and announcing its successful completion provides a counterweight to criticism of his foreign policy, particularly his use of U.S. power.
The success in eliminating bin Laden also casts the cool, reserved style that some critics have interpreted as a lack of passion in a more favorable light, said presidential historian Robert Dallek. Compared to the swagger of his predecessor — "Bring it on," Bush once challenged Iraqi insurgents — Obama can claim effectiveness.
The killing of the man who had come to embody the global terrorist threat gives a victory to celebrate for a public soured by a slow economic recovery, high gasoline prices and dissatisfaction with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In a CBS/New York Times poll completed April 20, 70 percent of Americans said the country is on the wrong track, the worst reading in more than two years. Perceptions about the country's direction historically have been among the factors predicting an incumbent president's re-election prospects.
Still the political benefits of military success can be transitory, said Christopher Gelpi, a political science professor at Duke University who has studied public opinion and war.
The bounce in public approval Bush received after U.S. forces captured Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in December 2003 faded within months, Gelpi said. Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, won a victory over Iraq in the Persian Gulf War in 1991 only to lose re-election a year later to Democrat Bill Clinton.
"It's a one-time event but as that event fades in salience, people turn their attention back to the economy," Gelpi said. "We can't kill bin Laden every day. But people experience the economy every day."
Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said the success in finding bin Laden will make it more difficult for Obama to gain public support for maintaining U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Independent swing voters as well as his Democratic base have soured on the two wars, and the death of bin Laden removes a rationale for the military commitments, she said.
"It definitely puts pressure to get out of Afghanistan and Iraq and bring the troops and the money home," Lake said. "If he stays in, he's challenged."
Bloomberg reporters Kate Andersen Brower, Eric Martin and Julianna Goldman contributed to this report.
