When all the plaudits die down and the US political machinery trains its fire on its own dire economy, the fact remains that last week all the Republican Presidential hopefuls could ask for was President Obama's birth certificate.
You couldn't really make it up. America: a country where less than 50% bother to vote for their own president, where $billions is spent on such elections and yet they have the nerve to espouse their democratic message around the world as though its system was living proof of why it should be copied.
President Obama held his head high last week; this week, after the capturing and killing of bin Laden, he can bathe in the glory which comes rarely to politicians in high office.