Must Reads: Bin Laden Kill Boosts Obama’s Poll Numbers
Obama gets a bump
Obama’s poll numbers get a 9 point boost — to 56 percent approval — in the first major poll since bin Laden killing. Just 17 percent of Republicans believe President deserves “a great deal” of credit for taking down al Qaeda’s leader. [Washington Post]
Reality catches up to tale of Osama raid
First Draft: Armed Osama gunned down in a firefight at million-dollar mansion in which he used his wife as a human shield. Revision: Unarmed Osama shot in the head in giant, mouldering, un-airconditioned house. Woman, not his wife, caught in crossfire. [The Atlantic]
In one sense, Bin Laden won
Osama’s aim, an al Qaeda expert tells Ezra Klein, was to bankrupt the United States. And strategy, Klein writes, “worked a lot better than most of us, in this exultant moment, are willing to admit.” [Washington Post]
BP faces record fine for Arctic pipeline spill
BP has been fined $25 million in civil penalties for its gross negligence in spilling 5,000 barrels of oil on to the Arctic tundra in 2006. The per-barrel fine is the highest ever imposed on an oil company and could leave BP on the hook for as much as $20 billion in damages from last year’s Gulf Spill. [New York Times]
U.S. sues Deutschebank over bunk mortgages
Payback time? The government is seeking $1 billion from the German bank for issuing nearly 40,000 federally insured mortgages “in blatant disregard” of whether the borrowers could pay. And the feds may have other big banks in their sights: “It would not be a fantastical stretch to think we are looking at other lending institutions as well,” said the U.S. attorney on the case. [Los Angeles Times]
PLUS:
What did Musharraf Know?
Former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf’s autobiography contains a strange details about a safehouse in Abbottabad: “We were tipped off that someone important in al Qaeda was living in a house there.”: