*

On Sunday, May 1, the day of the raid, orders were sent closing the White House to any visitors. When Katie Johnson, the president's secretary, asked if an exception could be made for Zach Galifinankis and the cast of the hit movie 'The Hangover,' who were scheduled for a private tour, she was told no.

....... He (the President) wandered into an adjacent room where the Pentagon had set up communications for real-time information. Air Force General Bud Webb offered his chair, but the president waved him off and took a seat on a folding chair in the corner of the small unadorned room, where he sat without speaking as the mission unfolded. Others wandered in, their eyes on a timer that showed how much was left of the forty minutes designated for the members of SEAL Team to be on the ground.

"This was the longest forty minutes of my life," the President said later .....

It began badly, as the chopper failed to clear the compound wall and made a crash landing. Clinton held the breath. ..... Gates, who said later that he felt like he was having an aneurysm, stared straight ahead; no one dared look at him, lest they rouse the unspoken memory of Desert One. A soon-to-be-iconic photograph caught some of the tension, though Clinton later said she had her hand over her mouth because of allergies.

Even when McRaven learned that the SEALs in the chopper were safe, everyone knew the hundred other ways the mission could go wrong. With the chopper down, the SEAL team had to break through the wall, giving people in the house plenty of warning. Was the place bobby-trapped? Would the bodyguards engage in a prolonged firefight. In the White House basement it was assumed that the answer to both question was yes.

McRaven, narrating developments by audio, didn't change his intonation in the slightest as the mission as amended. After the SEALs entered bin Laden's house, the video connection to the House House was lost for several minutes, and long stretches of silence descended on the room. .....

Finally, the commanding officer of SEAL Team 6 said, For God and country -- I pass Geronimo, EKIA." Enemy killed in action.

With bin Laden confirmed dead, those present let out a sign of relief, cautiously anticipating the best. .... Even a quite celebration would have to wait until the choppers were back across the Afghanistan border and the identity of the body confirmed with DNA evidence. ...... By then Obama had inspected photographs of the corpse. He prohibited the release of any photos. "We don't trot this stuff out as trophies," he later explained.

With all the SEALs miraculously safe and uninjured, it was time to spread the word. ... Bush was called first, and then Obama asked the secretary of state where he could find her husband. ...... Biden and Donilon began alerting congressional leaders. From there, of course, it would inevitably leak.

Arun Chaudhary, the official White House videographer, was invited in with his camera, the first of many efforts to make sure the story was properly recorded for history and, of course, for credit around the world. "I'm proud of you," Obama told Panetta on tape. "You guys did a great job."

....... But it wasn't certain that Obama would make a statement that night for fear of inflaming the situation. Of the principals, only Panetta thought it was good idea. He argued that it was preferable for the message to come from the president rather than from some Pakistani colonel. But Obama's first inclination was to keep everything quiet and delay going public until the next day. That was the Obama style: low-key, even in victory. ~ Page 151 to 153

David Plouffe thought he (Obama) was "better suited for politics in Scandinavia than here," by which he meant that he was a logical and unemotional person in an illogical and emotional capital. He undertook a rigorous assessment of what went wrong in the debt ceiling fiasco and concluded that he had been playing way too much of an inside game. He realized more clearly that he needed the American people behind him to get anything more accomplished. ....

....... On September 2 (2011) the August job report showed unemployment stuck at 9. Percent and disturbing trend lines, with June and July jobs figures adjusted downward and the number of those "marginally attached to the labor force" up. The numbers weren't nearly as bad as in early 2009, when economy was losing 750,000 jobs a month. But that was on Bush. This was on Obama.

Obama looked up and down the report on his desk five times, squinting at it to make sure he was reading it was right. For the first time since World War II, the economy created no new jobs -- neigher job loss nor gain. Nothing. "How can this be zero?" the president asked. Plouffe thought it was the perfect metaphor for his predicament a year before an election. ~ Page 173

His allies in the press were peeling off. At the end of the summer Obama grew perturbed at the 'New York Times' editorial page for making him read what he saw as "distracting" attacks "over my orange juice." When he met with the paper, columnist Tom Friedman criticized his communication strategy. Obama admitted as usual to not having a clear message but conceded no other mistakes. He implied that the expected the 'Times' to be on his side, which didn't go over well with the group of independent-minded journalists.

Earlier Andy Rosenthal, the editorial page editor, had asked the president if he realized that he was dealing with radical extremists who hated not just his policies but him as a person. When Obama said he knew that, Rosenthal said 'Times' readers were wondering why he didn't just hit back at them. 'I can't do that every day," the president said. ~ Page 173