The Wandering Chicken

It had to end somewhere, History’s Greatest Manhunt, and the fact that it climaxed in dull suburbistan next to a training base for the hunters’ allies proved less startling than the discovery that the hunt was still going on at all. Like the Monday morning shock of 9/11, the Sunday evening shock of Bin Laden’s death caught America flossing, concluding a tragedy that we’d stopped thinking about with a catharsis that we’d stopped hoping for. It was a moment of spooky historical symmetry, especially as it played out on TV. Down a long hallway that symbolized the past strode a grim-faced first-term president whose skin color, which we still noticed despite ourselves, made him look like figure from the future. Just as we had when Bush spoke way back when, we knew by the time Obama opened his mouth just about everything he had to say, which only increased our need to hear him say it.