Moments that are kind of inevitable in the current age.

• Go away helicopter – before I take out my giant swatter :-/ 

  
• @m0hcinhttp://bit.ly/ljB6p6 seems like my giant swatter worked ! 

   

  Pakistan News: Helicopter Crashed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Near Military Academy of Kakool

And the moment of realization:

Uh oh, now I’m the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.

……………………………………..

I learned about Osama Bin Laden’s death in a setting which probably ensued a non-representative response — it’s probably not all that interesting — maybe I’ll let it out one of these days.  It wasn’t quite like this:

Some people wore pajamas. Others college-logo gear. There were even suits and a few blue blazers. All the variations of flag-based clothing were present and accounted for, too: Shirts with stars and stripes; a bikini with stars and stripes; shorts with stars and stripes. A flag wrapped around the shirtless torso was a popular look for men. […]

The college kids also started most of the chants. The most disturbing to me was probably, “Nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey hey hey goodbye.” If you’re a basketball fan, you’ll recognize that chant as what you do when a guy fouls out. Baseball fans might hear it was what you rain on an opposing pitcher when he’s forced from the game. Neither of these chant-analogies seem at all appropriate for the killing of America’s greatest foe. The same goes for the Georgetown fight song, which broke out several times, and received actual boos from some passing American University students, who contemplated being able “to take” the Georgetown kids.

Everyone seemed to be confusing the occasion with other times that they’d been in large crowds of like-minded individuals. On a half-dozen occasions, different Washington Capitals hockey fans started the “C-A-P-S, Caps, Caps, Caps” chant. On the other end of the spectrum, a random activist brought a large Algerian flag into the center of the American flag area. When asked why he had an Algerian flag, he said, “Because Algerians have fought with Americans in the war on terror,” but I figured that maybe it was the only flag that he had, and flags were a most sought-after accessory.

I brace myself against a couple of types of reactions today.  One is a sort of inst-expert who can rattle on geo-political ramifications that they’ve accumulated from watching coverage being filled on tv.  Flash back to September of 2001 and they’d have told you that Bin Laden would be killed within a fortnight, that he’s pretty well fingered within a 20 mile radius.  I suppose I’ll float one thing in that area — to the question of “Did Bin Laden turn out to be at the sort of place I’d supposed he would turn out to be in?” — heavily fortified mansion in relatively populated place in Northern Pakistan in that range of shaky government control that blurs boundaries with Afghanistan… no cave in sight — some categories yes, some categories no.  Since this assessment was based on the same things your insta-experts are throwing about right now, figure its correct / incorrect ratio is about the same.

I turn on the radio to hear that special variety of punditry.  George Noory bumped whatever crystal stroker he had scheduled for the evening to talk with an intelligence expert of no special distinction.  In passing, Noory — because he can’t help it — brings up other events that have happened on May 1.  Bush stood off the shore in Sand Diego before a “Mission Accomplished” banner.  Also Hitler committed suicide.  It just goes to show you — things have happened on every one of the 366 dates on the calendar.  A caller chimes in with, “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this happened on May Day, a big day on the Communist calendar — knowing who Obama has behind him it seems ready to stage to advance his agenda.”  That is one direction of a particularly partisan conspiracy mongering.  The other directions — well, the info wars point to all the times Osama was rumored death and pick whatever holes they can in the story and point to never seeing Osama’s body.

I look over to the “progressive” websites.  It’s a reasonably predictable response, along the lines of “War is Over.  If you want it” — that may have, in a sense but probably not quite the sense that Chris Hedges would like, been telegraphed by Petraeus being bumped to CIA.  I needed to hear how Limbaugh would approach the subject.  What we will get from that specter of things is a vindication of Guantanamo Bay.  For that, Limbaugh has not cropped Obama out of the picture, though the real time minutes of internet coverage forces one arches eye brow to be followed by the partisan fret. That last line is inevitable, though politically the Osama’s death would ensue Obama’s re-election only after August of 2012 — in 2011 it just sits there.
Yeah, sure.  Cue 2007.

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