Live Q&As

I'm cheering. The man was a mass murderer -- not a henchman, but the leader who ordered the 9/11 attacks, among other atrocities. I don't usually celebrate death, but I'm making an exception.

There will be much argument about this. The first kernel of information, it's being reported, seems to have come from a detainee while he was being held and, presumably, tortured in a secret CIA prison. Other crucial information seems to have come from Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, but not from his waterboarding; it apparently came out much later during conventional, and legal, interrogation. But the argument will never be settled, because it's impossible to prove that information obtained through torture could never have been extracted without torture.

Bin Laden's residence was literally just down the road from the Pakistani military academy. It is implausible, if not inconceivable, that Pakistani intelligence and/or the military could have been completely unaware that bin Laden was living just 35 miles from the capital of Islamabad. Were government officials kept in the dark, or were they in on it, too?

I agree about the disconnect. Your premise about the celebrations Sunday night, however, is not quite right. Yes, there were a lot of college students. But the crowd at the White House was demographically diverse -- I saw all ages and races, and I'll bet there were all income groups as well.

I see it a bit differently, in that the big mistakes were of our nation's own choosing: Invading Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11; and cutting taxes rather than raising enough revenue to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We're getting mixed signals here. There are reports that "significant" information was collected. We also know that bin Laden took great pains to avoid being a target of electronic surveillance -- no phone line, for example. Apparently he communicated solely by courier. But maybe he was convinced that the compound itself was safe.

An awful lot has indeed changed. There's a sense of new possibility throughout the Arab world, and it's about self-determination, not "Death to America."

Agreed.

Some conservatives have been forthright in praising President Obama for his gutsy call, just as some liberals -- like me -- are being forthright in noting that this lead was first developed under President Bush.

I've seen a quote attributed to a U.S. official estimating that bin Laden had lived there for five or six years, and elsewhere I saw a report that perhaps the entourage had just been there for five or six months. I suppose it's possible that this might have been one of several residences. Maybe we'll get a more definitive answer as details emerge.

Thanks. And yes, if I had a million dollars to spend on a house in rural Pakistan, I think I could do better.

Probably not. Think about it: Where would you put it? His Saudi citizenship was revoked, so the Saudis didn't want it. No government would be eager to create some kind of shrine where jihadists would make pilgrimage. I think burial at sea was almost certainly the best option.

I think Will is almost right. I wrote at the time that the Bush administration went way too far with the "war" metaphor. But it's simplistic, I think, to say that al-Qaeda's terrorist violence could have been handled exclusively through police work. Remember that bin Laden was operating with the support and protection of the recognized government of Afghanistan.

I hope so. As you point out, what bin Laden preached is a perversion of Islam. If authorities around the world are rolling up al-Qaeda networks as we speak, that's terrific. But I kind of doubt it. Al-Qaeda had already become more of a franchise operation, with various units -- like Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen -- acting pretty much independently, according to intelligence analysts. So cutting off the head of the snake might not be the coup de grace.

I hope it lifts a psychological burden that has, at times, clouded our judgment. I hope it lets us see clearly the tradeoffs we've made in the name of security, and lets us make better decisions.

I have argued, and will continue to argue, for due process for "war on terrorism" detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere. I've argued, and will continue to argue, against torture -- whether or not the first germ of information that led to bin Laden's whereabouts came from a torture session. The information could have been obtained, through skillful interrogation, without torture. But I'm unreserved in my happiness at the demise of Osama bin Laden. For this mass murderer, I make an exception.

It seems to me that if you're the most-wanted fugitive in the world, and you decide to live outside a town that's home to a slew of military officers -- and right down the road from the Pakistani military academy -- then either you're totally nuts or you think you have protection.

I think it pretty much ends the weak-on-defense line of attack. GOP candidates who pursue it will likely just hurt themselves.

If you asked me that question about, say, drone attacks that destroy whole neighborhoods and kill civilians, I'd say you had a point. But this is the guy who murdered thousands of Americans. It was a surgical strike. Bin Laden knew that Sunday would come someday, and he is welcome to his martyrdom.

And with that, folks, my time is up. See you again next week, same time, same station.