Catch of the Day, and Housekeeping

Catch of the Day? I think I'll go with Barack Obama, along with a whole bunch of federal government employees, for killing Osama bin Laden. Perhaps not in keeping with the normal order of things, but that's the advantage of having your own award.

Just a few quick notes...

The very best headline I saw last night before I went to bed? From Jeffrey Goldberg: "A Great Day For Islam." Perhaps more aspirational than descriptive; perhaps not.

Here are the links to presidential speech watchers James Fallows and Andrew Sprung. Yeah, I cringed for Fallows when Obama did the "rote-autotext" ending.

On the level of domestic politics, it's going to be interesting to see how Republicans handle the next few days. Someone last night linked to an old post of mine about it...we'll see how long it takes for some intrepid Republicans to start trying to spin this against Obama. I'm guessing days, not weeks! So far, however, most Republicans are explicitly supporting the president and, to a lesser extent, giving him credit; that means we're going to see a significant rally-round-the-flag bump in Obama's approval ratings, from the mid-40s at the end of last week to...hmmm, I'll start the bidding at 60%, a major spike. I see Jamelle Bouie expects a "bump past the 50 percent mark," but I think that's too modest, although I'm obviously just guessing, here. I suppose I should also link to a column I did on the rally effect over at TNR.

Plenty more later, but much of it's going to be over at the Plum Line. Greg's taking the week off ; he has a brand new baby daughter to enjoy -- mazel tov! -- and I'm filling in for him. And then after that, posting will probably continue to be irregular early next week, because I'll be travelling. So I will be posting here over the next ten days, but not on the usual schedule.