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He was not being sarcastic. Turns out he was being sarcastic. Rush Limbaugh opened his program today by saying, “Thank God for President Obama.” Politico has now updated its original take and now says El Rushbo was in full mockery mode.

He went on to say:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we need to open the program today by congratulating President Obama. President Obama has done something extremely effective, and when he does, this needs to be pointed out….

President Obama, perhaps the only qualified member in the room to deal with this, insisted on the Special Forces. No one else thought of that…not a single intelligence adviser, not a single national security adviser, not a single military adviser came up with the idea of using SEAL Team 6 or any Special Forces.”

That turned out to be part of the mockery as well.

Former New York City Mayor and vociferous Obama critic, Rudi Guiliani, actually was sincerely gracious today:

“I feel a great deal of satisfaction that justice has been done, and I admire the courage of the president to make a decision like this because if something had gone wrong everyone would be blaming him and I admire the courage and professionalism of our military intelligence officials who carried this out and this is a great victory against terror. Nobody can minimize it. He was a symbol more than anything else right now but…symbols are really important.”

Others have been less than gracious, congratulating the military but failing to mention the role the President played in approving the surgical strike.

According to Politico.com:

Over the past seven weeks, Obama had chaired numerous National Security Council meetings on the topic, including ones on March 14, March 29, April 12, April 19 and April 28.

“In the lead up to this operation, the President convened at least 9 meetings with his national security Principals,” a senior administration official e-mailed reporters. “Principals met formally an additional five times themselves; and their Deputies met 7 times. This was in addition to countless briefings on the subject during the President’s intelligence briefings; and frequent consultations between the [White House National Security Council], CIA, [Defense Department] and Joint Staff. The President was actively involved in reviewing all facets of the operation.”

This was a total team effort; from the Situation Room in the White House to the incredible heroism and courage of the U.S. Special forces who despite losing a helicopter and going on with the mission anyway not knowing if they had a way out of there, pulled it off anyway.

This also speaks to the merits of continuity between Presidential administrations. The groundwork for this was laid by George W. Bush. And he deserves credit as well. There will always be debate about the tactics that were used and whether Iraq should have ever have been part of the equation. Those debates are for another day.

For now: justice served.