Osama bin Laden Dead Of Typhoid Fever?

By now you've seen the leaks and the subsequent skepticism. The most satisfying conclusion would be if OBL could be arrested and brought into U.S. custody and tried and executed. If, like me, you've got a mind to rub it in, he could be brought to Gitmo and tried before Bush's military tribunals, while progressives make wail over his maltreatment, much to the embarrassment of tacitly like-minded Democrats.

But cosmic justice is usually unavailable to us. Pol Pot died of illness, ousted by a not-much-better faction. Stalin died in his room, attended by toadies rather than loved ones, to be sure, but never even sniffing justice. Castro is going to die in his bed, lionized by the transnational Left. Only Ceasescu met a satisfying, rough justice end, in recent decades. So, if OBL has expired of a preventable disease in the wilds of Waziristan, then we'll just have to accept the workings of Providence. And if he's still up there, then let's hope we can still bag him someday, or render him ineffectual, or both. It's good to remember something Donald Rumsfeld said in October of 2001, about the hunt for OBL:

Until you have him, you do not have him, so what is progress? Until he is no longer functioning as a terrorist, he is functioning as a terrorist. There isn't any "progress." You either have him or you don't.