image via USA Today

The Statue of Liberty is Tebowing on the back cover of today's New York Daily News.

The tabloid has swiftly transferred its hype-mongering efforts from Knicks phenomenon Jeremy Lin to the newest New York Jet, Tim Tebow, promising "Timsanity."

Yesterday's trade of the Denver Broncos quarterback was also splashed on The News' front cover, as well as that of  rival New York Post. The News went with a simple "Amen," while The Post has Mr. Tebow taking a knee in Times Square.

The Post headline is "God Him!"--an apparent reference to the "Got Him!" cover the paper published the morning after Osama bin Laden was killed.

We'll call the curious equation of these two events "Osama Binsanity."

The Man in the Yellow Tie, with Clinton and Panetta, and in a college yearbook photo.

Anyone who’s ever logged in to a social network while in a jubilant, possibly intoxicated frame of mind knows the dangers. Sometimes you share something you should maybe keep to yourself, or you forget to check your privacy settings, or you show off a little too much skin.

That’s more or less what the U.S. government appears to have done in the heady moments after dumping whatever was left of Osama bin Laden into the churning waters of the North Arabian Sea.

Getting him had taken 10 years, billions of dollars and the dogged work of an unnamed senior intelligence analyst in the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center.

The Associated Press brought the mysterious analyst’s role to light on July 5, after which a mere two days elapsed before The Observer managed to learn the identity of this super spy, type it into Google and track the poor guy to a quiet subdivision in Northern Virginia.

Just how a reporter—one whose largest scoop to date involved the romantic indiscretions of a pair of Hollywood actors—gained possession of a nugget of intelligence that a senior U.S. official told us would be “extremely damaging” if publicly revealed, is either the tale of a carefully orchestrated public relations gambit designed to christen a new American hero, or that of a colossal governmental blunder—or perhaps a bit of both.

It began little more than a week ago, when the Associated Press published an adulatory profile a mysterious C.I.A. analyst, entitled “The Man Who Hunted Osama Bin Laden.”

In the breathless prose of a Jerry Bruckheimer trailer, reporters Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo introduced the shadowy figure who’d tracked bin Laden nearly since the day the towers fell. “In the hunt for the world’s most-wanted terrorist, there may have been no one more important,” they wrote.

The story quoted a number of “current and former intelligence officials,” including John E. McLaughlin, the former deputy director of Central Intelligence, all of whom heaped praise on their steadfast colleague. But at the C.I.A.’s request, the piece did not identify the man by name “so that he would not become a target for retribution.” Instead, Mr. Goldman and Mr. Apuzzo wrote, “Call him John, his middle name.”

“They made a compelling case that even though he wasn’t under cover, they didn’t want to put a target on his back,” Mr. Apuzzo explained of his discussions with the C.I.A. “So we wrote it in a way that people would not be able to identify who he was.”

Well, not exactly. Because the story also dangled a more tantalizing clue—noting that John was standing “just outside the frame” in the “now-famous photograph” of the Obama national security team huddled around a conference table in the Situation Room, anxiously watching a TV monitor as the daring raid on bin Laden’s compound unfolded.

That was enough for John Young of Cryptome.org, an intelligence blog dedicated to exposing government secrets. About nine hours after reading the AP piece, Mr. Young posted a story that appeared to unmask the master terrorist hunter. And he did it with the sort of simple deductive reasoning that wouldn’t be out of place in a Miss Marple novel. It seems that although the man’s face was cropped out of the famous Situation Room photo, his pale yellow necktie was not. He also appeared to be unusually tall. The White House, as part of an all-out effort to trumpet its signature intelligence triumph, had released a number of photos on that day to media outlets around the world. Mr. Young simply checked the administration’s Flickr feed for shots of a man with the same build and taste in neckwear.

And there he was.

Indeed, he turned up again in a shot taken two days later, accompanying then-C.I.A. director Leon Panetta to a closed-door briefing of Congress. Curiously, he was even wearing the same tie. (To be fair, it was before Father’s Day.)

“It was a no-brainer to figure this out,” Mr. Young told The Observer, speaking in a crusty drawl that recalled the late William S. Burroughs.

Mr. Young’s item was intriguing, but not conclusive. And it failed to name the arch-spook, though Mr. Young later noted, “If I had the name, I’d put it up. I’m an absolutist.”

Once the photo was out there, of course, it was only a matter of time. But how little time was surprising. Within a day, The Observer happened to mention the Cryptome story while out with some friends. An acquaintance volunteered that he recognized the man in the photo and proceeded to put a name to the face.

A few web searches turned up details of the man’s personal life. In college, he’d played basketball. No superstar by any means—he was mostly a practice player—he’d been aggressive enough to catch the eye of the team’s coach, who later spoke glowingly of John’s unusual shooting style.

The Observer also stumbled across the man’s college G.P.A. (a respectable 3.5). We grabbed his address on Lexis/Nexis and gazed down on his home via Google Maps. We checked out his children’s school and noted that his wife recently helped coordinate the school fair. We read about his son’s sports exploits, and observed with a touch of conspiratorial frisson that his father is an expert in the work of Leo Strauss, one of the patron saints of Bush-era neoconservatism.We dashed off a draft of a web story, complete with a sober-sounding rationale that read, in part, “Printing the name of even an overt C.I.A. employee who is, by all accounts, a national hero, is not something we do lightly. But after considerable debate, we concluded that the benefit of telling the story far outweighed the risks. The ease with which we turned up information the agency was supposedly determined to keep classified was in itself an important story … ”

Before hitting “post,” though, we placed a call to Langley and told the receptionist we knew who John was and that we’d like to get a comment from the press officer.

There was a pause. “Can you tell me the first name?” she asked.

We told her.

“Just a moment,” she said, and put us through.

When the AP story hit the wires, John’s heart sank, according to a source familiar with his thinking. Not two weeks before, Director Panetta, now the secretary of defense, had hosted a large reception at C.I.A. headquarters to honor those who’d contributed to the Abbottabad raid. There was no family invited, nor were refreshments served. But in a rare celebratory flourish, a large white tent was erected for the occasion. Addressing some 1,300 attendees, Director Panetta praised the various teams whose efforts over 10 years had resulted in the double-tap heard ’round the world.

“Few can say that they had a hand in an operation that made the world a better place,” Mr. Panetta said. “Getting rid of bin Laden has made this nation and our world a safer place for our children.”

According to the source, John now has cause to wonder if those words apply in his case. By singling him out as the most important figure behind “the greatest counterterrorism success in the history of the C.I.A.,” the article made him and his family terror targets in a way they had never been before.

“I understand the enemy,” the source close to John elaborated darkly. “This article focused attention on one specific individual that they didn’t know about. That sort of thing has great symbolic meaning to them, and for that reason I’m legitimately concerned.”

The Observer wondered whether the story had inspired any resentment from John’s colleagues. Quite the opposite, the source said. “Unanimously, people were coming up and expressing their condolences. This is not what anybody who works at the C.I.A. wants—this kind of attention brought to themselves or their families. The folks who work with him the closest understand the increased risk.”

Still, The Observer couldn’t help wondering: if the C.I.A. didn’t want the AP story (which, to be frank, is a bit of a puff piece) to run in the first place—if, indeed, the whole idea violated the culture of the organization and put a senior analyst at risk—why had so many intelligence officials been so eager to chat up the reporters? Without their willing testimony that John was the greatest, most discerning, generous and unassuming national hero since 24’s long-suffering Chloe, there would have been no story, and John could have continued his duties unmolested and unknown.

We reached out to one of the few named sources in the piece, former deputy director of central intelligence John McLaughlin, now a professor at Johns Hopkins’s Merrill Center for Strategic Studies. A receptionist said he was busy and probably would remain so for several weeks. She suggested we send an email. We did, making sure to drop John’s first name in a parenthetical.

Mr. McLaughlin gave us a call a few minutes later. “I made a mistake,” he said. “It was a lapse in judgment. They called me, I was in a rush and I didn’t think it through. I know him, I think very highly of him. But I shouldn’t have done it. They said they weren’t using his name, but I should have realized it would become a chase to find it.”

He added, “I implore you, do not publish this man’s name.”

Mr. Goldman and Mr. Apuzzo had heard the same plea. They’ve dealt with the issue before and say there’s no hard and fast rule. For instance, the C.I.A. often allows its own employees to refer to covert agents in their memoirs by first names and last initials. In a February exposé, the reporters went so far as to print the first names of clandestine field agents, but that had been a much tougher story, one dealing with possibly criminal actions. “We needed there to be a way for people to be held accountable for grave mistakes,” Mr. Goldman explained.

Unlike those agents, John was an overt employee of the agency, meaning that he lived and worked openly and was free to tell acquaintances where he worked. But the reporters and their editors agreed to the C.I.A.’s request, because “he was just doing his job,” Mr. Goldman explained. They also scrubbed the story of other details that might have made him identifiable. “We don’t say how old he is,” Mr. Goldman said. “We don’t say how tall he is—the guy could have played guard, he could be 5-foot-7. Sure, people are free to guess, but we feel confident that John can sleep at night.”

That might well have been true if John hadn’t appeared in that Situation Room photo. A C.I.A. spokesperson declined to comment on the significance of the photograph. Asked whether the agency had vetted the images before their release by the White House, or whether the press office took any responsibility for the disclosure, he again declined to comment.

For some insight into how such decisions are made, we called Mark Pfeifle. During the Bush administration, Mr. Pfeifle was the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications and global outreach. We asked him how a sensitive picture of a senior C.I.A. analyst might have wound up on the White House Flickr feed in the first place.

“The Obama White House has increased dramatically the use of digital media, so there’s a much more robust photo collection on Flickr than we had,” he said, adding that in his experience, “any photograph that would go on the White House website was carefully scrutinized to make sure there wasn’t a way to zoom in and, say, examine a document on the table using some advanced technology. Especially in a sensitive area like the Situation Room. Any question about someone in a photo would have been raised to the N.S.C. staff, whose job would have been to I.D. those in the picture and stop any that raised questions.”

As to the photo of John taken two days later, he noted, “C.I.A. shouldn’t have had anyone but the director and security detail in that photo on Capitol Hill.” He called it an example of “bad photo op management.”

Mr. Pfeifle added, “The Obama White House should be given credit for trying to bring the public into the process, but there’s also a big, unfortunate downside.”

Did the White House blow it, stumbling into the sort of social media speed bump that has undone so many partying teenagers? Was it all a case of Spooks Gone Wild, brought on by the giddy emotional rush of having finally plugged “Geronimo”? The White House press office had no comment.

How about John? Wouldn’t he know better than to stand there behind Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta while the official White House photographer snapped away? It was impossible to ask. Since the C.I.A. refused to acknowledge that the tall man in the picture was, in fact, John, they couldn’t very well let him respond to the question.

According to Jessica Stern, a lecturer at Harvard and an expert on terrorism, “Somebody either made an incredibly stupid mistake here, or they wanted him to be revealed. I think they probably made a stupid mistake.”

To Mr. Young, an architect and independent researcher, the latter theory seemed more likely. “It has all the hallmarks of a deliberate disclosure,” he said. “This was a story filled with clues. The thing about ‘just outside the picture’ was a dead giveaway that they wanted this to happen.”

As to the photo, Mr. Young said, “Putting this guy in the picture was no accident. To show him directly behind Panetta? I think they wanted to reward this guy’s hard work and get some favorable publicity and it worked. It’s one of the few successes they can crow about.”

While casting doubt on that theory, Mr. Pfeifle, now a communications adviser in Washington, acknowledged that there was a strong motivation within the agency to seek out positive publicity. “The individuals at the C.I.A. do such an extensive amount of things that make our country safer every day, that are never reported about, and for some individuals and entities, that’s a difficult thing—when they see stories of heroism and success that emanate from other government agencies.”

In other words, SEALs aren’t the only ones who like to clap their flippers now and again.

Mr. Pfeifle added that sometimes disclosures are generated by factions within a given agency, who might have competing agendas. “There’s always the impulse for the intelligence bureaucracy to try to shape public perception, whether for congressional funding or to achieve a certain policy outcome,” he explained. “That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s coming from the top down. It could be one area within a bureaucracy that wants to push something. And the people who do communications will often see that and freak out a bit.”

Whether or not the “C.I.A. John” Affair was orchestrated on some level, it seemed there was in fact a little freaking out going on in the halls of Langley. Two days after we began our reporting, a U.S. government official told The Observer that John’s cover status had changed. Although he had long been, as the AP profile noted, an overt agent, he had since been designated covert.

This was interesting. The switch had happened “early this month,” the official said, declining to be more specific. Since only five days had elapsed between the publication of the AP story and this new revelation, it seemed fair to assume that John had gone “under cover” after The Observer contacted the agency.

This news sent us running to the web again, parsing the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Adopted in 1982, the act makes it a federal crime “to intentionally reveal the identity of an agent whom one knows to be in … certain covert roles with a U.S. intelligence agency,” according to Wikipedia. The law applies specifically to people with authorized access to this information, however, which leaves us in the clear.

And of course, we had another easy out. If we were merely to publish the name of the man in the photo—a man whom the C.I.A. will not confirm is actually the guy in the AP article—we would not knowingly be burning a covert agent.

Lecturer Stern thought we might want to tread carefully. In her estimation, John could be in serious danger if exposed, not from al-Qaeda, necessarily, but from rogue elements of the Pakistani intelligence agency, the I.S.I., who have made common cause with al-Qaeda and have access to greater resources, or by a lone-wolf type, poring over issues of Inspire magazine online and looking to make his mark.

“It’s an incredible coup for your paper, but it’s also a risk,” she said. “I would urge you to contact your lawyer, and then I would either consult your conscience or consult your rabbi.”

Still, this all seemed a bit fishy. Was it really up to a small weekly newspaper to protect the life of a top terrorist hunter, especially when so many of his colleagues were walking around openly and seemed to be adequately protected from harm?

As Mr. Goldman of the AP put it, “John’s no more at risk than McRaven, the guy who ordered in SEAL Team 6. He’s no more at risk than Morell, the deputy director of the C.I.A., or Panetta himself. Or what about Cofer Black, Jose Rodriguez, Bob Grenier or any other number of people whose names are out there?”

That said, there was, of course, some risk. How about the revenge-seeking, ax-wielding fanatic who targeted a Danish cartoonist for his images of Muhammed? Or Aimal Kasi, who in 1993 had walked along a line of cars on Chain Bridge Road as they waited to enter C.I.A. headquarters, and begun methodically picking off drivers, killing two employees and wounding three others?

If we could find the schedule for John’s son’s games, anyone could.

In the end, it was suggested that we might want to talk to some of John’s associates, off the record. That is, if we agreed not to print John’s name, even his first name.

We took the deal. The name was of no consequence to us. Moreover, the question seemed worth asking—and we were suddenly in a position to ask it: Who was this John?

Senior counterintelligence figures who have worked closely with him describe an extraordinarily modest man, soft-spoken and eager to remain clear of any limelight, the kind of guy who’s at his desk by 6 a.m. and whose primary hobbies are coaching his kids’ various sports teams and shooting hoops with the other men at his local parish—though he has yet to play with the president. He enjoys “the simple pleasures,” as a source close to him put it, “of any average Washington suburbanite.”

One senior counterterrorism official recalled being with John when the news came back of the fiasco at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan, when a double agent blew himself up, killing seven C.I.A. employees. According to the source, John, “like the best officers, was stoic.”

Though John may well have played a significant role in that operation and may have shared in the blame for its failure, no one we spoke to would say so or comment on the specifics.

“It was a tough morning,” the source said simply. “You go to the ceremonies and the farewells and you work harder the next day. But it was a very somber moment.”

There wasn’t much more to say about John. Those close to him were hard-pressed to come up with quirks or personal details. However, they all said he’s an effective manager, if his style is a little hokey at times. He offers up the same platitude to the kids he coaches that he employs with the analysts who work under him: “There’s no ‘I’ in team.”

In Mr. Young’s view, John sounds like the perfect new face for an agency that’s had its share of struggles in recent years. Indeed, Mr. Young added, his primary audience might be the president himself. “I think they shopped him to Obama with his height and his basketball background and his looks, and Obama fell in love with him,” he said. Mr. Young doesn’t believe John will remain under cover for long. “C.I.A. John is a very marketable product now,” he said. “I think he’ll be on the lecture trail. First it will be private briefings, and slowly he’ll ease out. Isn’t he a great role model? Tall, athletic. They’re going to make the most of this.”Mr. Young is an entertaining man to talk to. Though his views have the ring of conspiracy theories, they are also fairly spellbinding. For instance, he regaled us with his suspicion that the C.I.A. knew of bin Laden’s whereabouts long before killing him, but held off as a way to keep the budgetary spigot flowing to the military and intelligence communities. “We’ve had a war going on for 11 years now, and that’s just a standard rationale for billions in military expenditures. It’s a matter of deciding when you want to kill that golden goose that’s kept the military going for more than a decade.”

“I don’t have an opinion on that,” a senior counterterrorism official said sharply, when presented with the theory. “My personal opinion is that if we could have found him a week after 9/11, we would have been happy to do that.”

Mr. Young seems habitually inclined to see a nefarious plot behind most any incident, but at least it’s a plot—with shadowy, all-powerful figures pulling the strings, controlling the flow of information, paternalistically guarding the nation’s secrets and carefully maintaining their grip on power.

That may be a frightening notion, but it’s also a reassuring one—at least compared with the other possibility: that there are actual bad guys out there, that they really can take down a building or two if they set their minds to it, and that sometimes, purely by accident, the clean-cut suburban dad dedicated to hunting them down is put in mortal danger purely by mistake, by a collection of bumbling bureaucrats who just want a little credit when things go their way.

agell [at] observer.com | @aarongell

Additional reporting by Brian Thomas Gallagher.

These are indisputable facts, but they bear repeating from time to time. Mr. Netanyahu reminded Americans that as they look out on an unstable and uncertain Middle East, there is, in fact, an "anchor of stability" in the region--Israel, America's friend and ally. It's hardly a secret that many in the region have nothing good to say about the United States, and some--a small but potentially deadly minority--wish to bring harm to America's borders. The same people wish to wipe Israel off the face of the map. America's enemies, the prime minister noted, are Israel's enemies as well.

Mr. Netanyahu drove home the point by referring to the sudden death of a man responsible for the loss of innocent lives throughout the region and, indeed, the world. "Congratulations, America. Congratulations, Mr. President. You got bin Laden. Good riddance," the prime minister said.

Mr. Netanyahu's congratulatory remarks should have reaffirmed another simple truth. Osama bin Laden and his ilk are just as eager to bring death and destruction to Israel as they are to the United States. But there is one difference: Israel lives in a far more dangerous neighborhood.

The prime minister's speech was a welcome reminder of all that Israel and the United States have in common. With any luck, the White House was paying attention.

"It was a very special night at Ground Zero and I will always remember being a part of it," Mr. Birnbaum wrote The Observer in an e-mail. For him, the celebration was more about New York solidarity than terrorist bloodlust.

"While that picture shows my exuberance at the killing of bin Laden--and that was certainly how the crowd felt--perhaps the most moving part of the evening was when a spontaneous moment of silence quieted us, hands were raised silently in the air flashing the victory sign, and for 60 seconds we honored the 9/11 families. The silence ended with chants of "USA! USA!" Who could forget a night like that?" he wrote.

kstoeffel@observer.com :: @kstoeffel

Mayor Bloomberg opens world-renowned Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s historic outdoor sculpture exhibition - Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads - with AW Asia Founder Larry Warsh, Cultural Affairs Commissioner Levin and members of New York City’s Arts and Cultural Community. May 4, 2011 (Photo Credit: Spencer T Tucker)

Bin Laden: How much credit does Bush get? [Tim Herrera]

Bin Laden: Fake photos fool Scott Brown, others. [Daily News]

Bin Laden: Questions about legality of killing were raised "outrageously." [Errol Louis]

Bin Laden Photos: Editors support not releasing them. "What it boils down to is a matter of simple human decency." [New York Post]

Ground Zero: Obama visits, with Bloomberg, Cuomo, Corzine, Christie, victims families. [Jennifer Fermino and Carl Campanile]

Ground Zero: President's visit scares New Yorkers. "I don't think it's 100 percent safe," says 22-year-old. [Emily Epstein]

Ground Zero: On Friday, Obama to Kentucky to honor Navy Seals. [Mark Landler]

Ground Zero: Victim families can press Obama for terrorism trials. [Devlin Barrett and Sophia Hollander]

2012: Bin Laden's death doesn't guarantee Obama's re-election. [Andrea Tantaros]

2013: " don't expect there will be a runoff," says Bill Thompson. [Page Six]

NY26: GOP Corwin agrees to first debate after questioned about it from Buffalo News. [Robert McCarthy]

Offending Israel: Former Pataki aide Jeffrey Weisenfeld gets CUNY to block honorary degree for Tony Kushner, for not supporting Israel. [Patrick Healy]

Cuomo's Agenda: Statewide tour pushes same-sex marriage, ethics. [Ken Lovett]

Cuomo's Agenda: Also pushing property tax cap. [Tom Precious]

Investigating Albany: Legislator complains Cuomo may get too much power to probe the legislature. [Jimmy Vielkind]

Subppoenas: Schneiderman goes after Sony for security breach with with PlayStation. [Karen Freifeld and Michael Riley]

Ticket Fixing: Bronx ADA who had DWI arrest erased still working probe of NYPD officials who made tickets disappear. [NY Post]

Nassau Finances: In budget squeeze, officials go after $16.2 million in unpaid tickets. [Robert Brodsky]

Pedestrian Plazas: Vacca raises questions. [Sally Goldenberg]

Casting Suggestions: Jeff Bridges as Bill Keller, Susan Sarandon as Maureen Dowd and Robert Downey Jr. as David Carr. [Page Six]

Bin Laden was shot in the head during a raid on Sunday evening, and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney had previously called the photos "gruesome."

Lawmakers had been split on whether to release the photos, debating whether the conclusive evidence of bin Laden's death was worth the risk that it might inflame anti-American sentiment in the Arab world.

Long Island Congressman Peter King, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, argued for release of the photos on Piers Morgan's show last night, saying it was "probably the right thing to do," but also said he wouldn't "make a major issue with them on it."

Today, King held true to that, and said he respects the president's decision.

"I understand the president's decision and will not oppose it," King said in a statement. "While I have said that a photo release may be a good way to combat the predictable conspiracy theories about bin Laden's death, this is a decision for the President to make, and I respect his decision."

Here's a clip from his appearance last night:

Ground Zero: Bush won't join Obama there on Thursday. [Mark Landler and Peter Baker]

Bin Laden: Killed after, not during, assault on his compound. [Ben Smith]

Bin Laden: White House corrects the record; he was unarmed and resisting. [Julian Barnes and Laura Meckler]

"Bin Laden Bump:" Obama's poll numbers "shot up 9 points just one day." [Carl Campanile]

2012: Editors say killing bin Laden also killed chatter about Obama's skills, loyalties. Now talk economy they encourage GOP. [New York Times]

Spitzer's Emails: Schneiderman argues against releasing them. [Wall Street Journal]

Subpoenas: Schneiderman sends some to firms connected to questionable home foreclosures. [Ruth Simon]

Property Tax Cap: Editors question Cuomo's sincerity on this issue. [New York Post]

Renovating Albany: Cuomo says construction project to be finished 2 years earl and $2.3 million under budget. [Brendan Scott and Fred Dicker]

Wal-Mart: Small business advocate says study proves Wal-Mart hurts small businesses. [Steven Barrison]

Education Regulation: "High-level" executive with "oversight" of outside contract withdrew statement to judge about not having personal connection with Future Technology Associates. [Juan Gonzalez]

NYC Taxi: Don't judge it by its looks. [Michael Grynbaum]

NYC Taxi: Not impressed. [Erik Ortiz]

It was just after 2 a.m., and young, drunk revelers were belting out chants of "U-S-A" and bellowing the Pledge of Allegiance. They waved large American flags. One woman crowd-surfed as professional photographers with bulky cameras took shots in her direction.

Ms. Cunningham said the celebration was the "closest thing to being insanely happy, united."

Around 4 a.m., police officers began lining the streets with metal barricades, gently prodding the crowd into a narrow section of sidewalk, making way for television trucks to stake out their positions with lanky light poles and miles of thick electric cables.

By the time the sun came up, those cathartic cheers had been replaced by something more sober and complicated, a struggle to make sense of what exactly an introspective and victimized city should feel at the death of a remote tormentor.

But for New York's elected officials, the mix of emotions was particularly public, as they tried to balance the elation of the occasion with the proper decorum, and the remembrances of those who died with the words of caution that something tragic could yet happen again.

"It's not a celebration; it's a little more somber," said Senator Charles Schumer just after 8 a.m. in the corner of a Sheraton ballroom, where Mr. Schumer was smiling broadly as aides set up a podium for a hasty press conference, before the senator's long-scheduled speech to the Association for a Better New York. The night before, Mr. Schumer had been at home, working on the computer with his wife and daughter when he saw that the president would be holding a press conference, and immediately suspected it was about Osama bin Laden. Mr. Schumer said it was a great victory for the West, and called it "a turning point in the war on terror," on par with "a Saratoga or a Gettysburg."

After taking a few questions, Mr. Schumer posed with a copy of the Daily News, which encouraged bid Laden to 'Rot In Hell' on its cover. "I think this is what people are thinking even if they're not saying it," Mr. Schumer said. "And I'm sure the family members are thinking it." Before his speech, Mr. Schumer pointed to the flag pin on his lapel, which he began wearing on Sept. 12, 2001. "I've never felt prouder to wear this flag than I feel this morning," he said. The crowd of business executives gave a standing ovation.

At 11 a.m., Rudy Giuliani was standing on the corner of Vesey Street, as sober tourists strolled by with maps and cameras. Over his left arm was an American flag, folded into a neat square. He had on a red and blue tie, and an American flag pin on his left lapel. His right shoe was untied.

Earlier in the morning, in phone interviews with Matt Lauer and Politico, Mr. Giuliani had said he didn't feel much like celebrating. The death of bin Laden--shot in the head by Navy Seals who infiltrated his luxurious Pakistani compound--wasn't how Mr. Giuliani hoped to see the story play out. He recalled telling President Bush back in 2001: "Let me execute him."

"I really did mean it," Mr. Giuliani told reporters at ground zero. "There is a sense of anger and there is a sense of revenge that isn't the most noble sentiment, but it's a real one. And I think you just have to be honest about your emotions." He added, "He deserved to die."

In a series of interviews with television stations lined up along Vesey Street, facing the ground zero construction site, Mr. Giuliani praised President Obama, but made sure to credit President Bush, too. "This doesn't happen in a day. This happens over a period of time, over a period of years," he told CNBC. "Our last two presidents deserve a lot of credit. ... Our two presidents, this one and the last one, look very good today."

By 1 p.m., Mayor Bloomberg was joined on an elevated platform inside the ground zero construction site. About 20 television cameras pointed at the mayor's podium; the tall, incomplete 1 World Trade Center was in the background. Three times Mr. Bloomberg noted that bin Laden was "dead" but New York's spirit was not.

"Our assumption is, bin Laden's disciples would like nothing better than to avenge his death by another attack in New York," said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. "That is our operating premise. And we started taking precautions yesterday evening."

How exactly bin Laden's death would impact the city was not entirely clear. His Al Qaeda network had, by most accounts, diminished greatly in the decade since 2001. "Bin Laden directed here and was either the planner or the inspiration for a dozen plots in the city, including the Brooklyn Bridge, the subway system, bringing explosive material through shipping containers," Mr. Kelly said.

But he was not specific about bin Laden's connection to the recent plots.

"I think it's unclear as to what his latest influence was," the commissioner said. "Obviously, he was in a building, we're told, that had no Internet, no communications capacity of its own. So whatever he was doing, he was doing through couriers. But in terms of his immediate role, let's say in the last six months or a year, I couldn't tell you."

Throughout the afternoon, members of the city's far-flung Congressional delegation began to make their way south to D.C., where votes were scheduled for Monday evening, after a two-week recess. Congressman Eliot Engel spent the morning at J.F.K., after his overnight flight from Israel landed at 5 a.m. He had heard the news somewhere over the Atlantic, when the pilot announced bin Laden's death, to cheers from the cabin. "I am glad we killed him," said Mr. Engel, who cautioned that bin Laden's death alone wouldn't cripple Al Qaeda, nor bring the victims back. "At least we'll never hear that miserable voice or see that miserable face again."

"I'm happy that he was eliminated, because to have just captured him would have just invited every terrorist organization in the world to take hostages, and demand his release, and behead people and things like that," he added. A number of his New York colleagues had been making the rounds on television, and for a delegation often derided as painfully left-leaning by other parts of the country, they were roundly supportive of the president's action.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who had, in the past, questioned the president's executive action in Libya, called the strike "simple justice," and defended the president's prerogative on Good Day New York. "Any sovereign country is responsible for making sure that its territory is not used to attack another country," he said. "And if your territory is used to attack another country, you have the responsibility of stopping it."

But the delegation was careful not to preach closure.

"I think every time a victim hears the word 'closure,' they kind of say nothing will ever close," said Long Island Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, who lost her husband in a similarly senseless attack on the Long Island Railroad. "Because there's always an anniversary, always a holiday, that they'll miss their loved ones."

Late Monday evening, the White House announced that President Obama would travel to New York on Thursday to pay his respects at ground zero. But, on Tuesday morning, save for a dozen cameras clustered off a corner of the site, there were only hints of what had happened over the past 36 hours.

A couple of PATH commuters slowed down to read messages scrawled in brightly colored chalk.

"Justice Not Vengeance."

"No More Funding Pakistan / Cut Them Off"

"In Memory of Maurita Tam, 99th Floor."

A few fresh bouquets were stuck into the fence and, on one section, someone had taped pages from Monday's tabloids. Most of it went unnoticed as swarms of people hurried past. "As you can see, it's pretty much back to normal," said a police officer standing watch.

apaybarah@observer.com, rpillifant@observer.com

Journalists from newsrooms, magazine offices and studios across the country digested the information, repackaged it appropriately for their readers and viewers and moved on to the next order of business. For a select few, that meant planning for the weekend's events, the most high profile of which was the annual White House Correspondents Dinner--a tradition begun in 1920 that brings together the press and the people they purportedly cover for an evening of entertainment, shmoozing and, as the name implies, dinner. It is the nexus of a series of events, mostly cocktail parties and a few selective brunches, that extend throughout the weekend and are hosted by various media organizations and attended by Washington insiders, journalists--and increasingly, California-based attendees with a presumed interest in public policy, like Kim Kardashian and the Jonas Brothers--some of whom are invited as guests to the dinner by media organizations represented there.

At 4:52 p.m. on Thursday afternoon,  The Observer emailed The New York Times' executive editor, Bill Keller, to ask whether the dinner--an affair wherein journalists who are tasked with covering beltway power spend an evening socializing with it--is at worst, an outright conflict of interest, and at best, well ... a bit unseemly. Former New York Times columnist Frank Rich, who recently left the paper to become a columnist for New York magazine, had criticized the paper's attendance at the event and was said to be influential in curtailing its official appearances a few years prior. (Mr. Rich, who was out of the country, did not respond to The Observer's requests for comment.) The Observer wondered whether Mr. Rich's departure changed the paper's thinking on the issue. "GROAN," Mr. Keller responded via e-mail. "SUCH a done subject. Why don't you try Dean Baquet in the Washington Bureau? I'm sure he'd LOVE to answer your questions."

Seven minutes later,  The Observer received an e-mail from Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet. "Here is the deal," Mr. Banquet wrote. "We are not being holier than thou, or criticizing anyone who chooses to go. But we came to the conclusion that it had evolved into a very odd, celebrity-driven event that made it look like the press and government all shuck their adversarial roles for one night of the year, sing together (literally, by the way) and have a grand old time cracking jokes. It just feels like it sends the wrong signal to our readers and viewers, like we are all in it together and it is all a game. It feels uncomfortable."

An hour earlier, in the Situation Room of the White House, senior intelligence advisers explained to the president that there was a 60 to 80 percent chance Osama bin Laden had been located in a compound in Pakistan that the C.I.A. had been scouting for months, and the president needed to decide whether he would move ahead with an air strike or a ground strike, or if he would wait to gather further intelligence.

Around 7 p.m. that evening, Mr. Baquet followed up: "I don't want to trash the small and medium size papers that really care about this. It's just the way we feel." (For the record,  The Observer is a small-size paper, and does not officially attend the dinner.) 

It was Friday morning at 8:28 a.m. in New York and  The Observer scanned news of the Royal Wedding in London, which attracted approximately 22 million viewers in the U.S. As we prepared to head to D.C. to further inspect the Correspondents Dinner attendees up close, a meeting was taking place in the White House Diplomatic Room. Before boarding a helicopter to Alabama to survey flood damage, the president called his senior aides in and told them: it would be a helicopter strike. Security Adviser Tom Donilon; his deputy, Denis McDonough; and counterterrorism advisor John Brennan decided to move forward with Operation Geronimo, scheduled to take place on Saturday.

That evening in the W Hotel lobby, one of the first of the weekend's various parties had begun. Around 8:30 p.m. Hilda Solis, dressed in fuchsia, was ushered past New Yorker party security. "Secretary of Labor," her handler said to a young man with earpiece and iPad. Secretary Solis bounced in place to the elevator music. Forty-five minutes later editor David Remnick rested a plate of sushi on a table and debriefed The Observer. "Do you know about Mike Kelly?" In 1987, Kelly, then a  reporter, set the precedent for outrageous escorts by bringing Fawn Hall, Iran-Contra femme fatale. Kelly was killed reporting in Iraq in 2003. Asked about the decision by his former employer, The Washington Post, to bring Donald Trump as its guest of honor, Mr. Remnick replied, "Well, that should be interesting because I just ripped his ass. I'll have to stop by and say, 'Hi'."

About an hour later, The Observer intercepted the dinner's emcee, Saturday Night Live head writer Seth Meyers, who provided intelligence on the impending roast of the president, a tradition of the annual dinner. Mr. Meyers was not nervous, "healthy butterflies," he said. "It's easier to make fun of a politician you do like," he said. "It comes off as less angry."

Saturday morning. Operation Geronimo had been rescheduled due to weather.

The weather was just fine at Tammy Haddad's annual Garden Brunch--held at the former home of the late Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, which is now owned by venture capitalist Mark Ein--the weekend's festivities now in full swing. The Observer spotted New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich, who is reportedly working on a book about the incestuousness of beltway culture. Also in attendance were Olympic snowboarder Shaun "The Flying Tomato" White, Morgan Fairchild and Chace Crawford. Rupert Murdoch was ushered from the living room to the patio after being approached by reporter Gabriel Sherman, known to be working on a book about Fox News. Actor Tim Daly, in beard, shades and a threadbare velvet blazer, went largely unrecognized and explained to another guest that he wanted to meet Buzz Aldrin, who was being wheeled around the patio. He played [astronaut] Jim Lovell in the HBO series, he explained. Rosario Dawson, a guest of CNN, made sure to note that she was invited because of her advocacy work and not her celebrity status.

Mid-afternoon, REM bassist Mike Mills convinced an unidentified suit to submit to the powers of magician Gerard Senehi. "Mentalist," Mr. Senehi corrected. "If you call me a magician again, I'll kill you." Mr. Senehi correctly guessed the foreign word the suit has written on the back of his MSNBC business card. It was already written on Mr. Senehi's own business card, which he extracted from his wallet, to Mr. Mills' delight.

The Palin family arrived surrounded by photographers and clamoring fans and a TV producer was seen bragging about having given Sarah Palin his card.

Later that evening in the reception room of the Washington Hilton, a throng of people, including Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Piven, began moving toward the main hall of the hotel for the White House Correspondents Dinner. Greta Van Susteren engaged Donald Trump as a crowd looked on.  The Observer asked Mr. Trump who he was excited to meet at the dinner. "Everyone. Everyone," he said.  A Washington Times reporter thrust her comically oversize microphone at him: "Mr. Trump, what do you have to say about the rumor that Kim Kardashian will be your running mate?" He answered without looking at her: "That's, uh, I can't, that's not true." She persisted: "What about Khloe?" Trump and the throng trudged forward: "No, no." The reporter grinned as she turned away, pleased with her line of questioning.

At approximately 8:30 p.m., the president arrived at the dinner. Shortly thereafter, he left the dais, following Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' lead. As revelers continued to sip their Champagne, the president was informed the Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi's son had been killed by a NATO airstrike.

An hour later, the New York Times reporter Peter Baker won the Aldo Beckman Award for his "deep insight about how Obama operates, from his response to the terrorist threat to his struggles to contend with what the president himself called our 'big, messy democracy.'"

At 10:22 p.m. Seth Myers was well into his routine for the evening. "People think bin Laden is hiding in the Hindu Kush," said Myers, "but did you know that every day from 4 to 5 he hosts a show on C-SPAN?" The president laughed heartily. Myers later noted: "I am, of course, contractually obligated to attend the MSNBC party. Everyone knows how the MSNBC party works: President Obama mixes the Kool-Aid, and everyone drinks it."

An hour later, The Observer was at the Italian embassy for the MSNBC party, where Rachel Maddow mixed drinks and tended bar below a sign that glows in cursive, pink-neon lettering: RACHEL'S BAR." The Observer asked her if she thought the dinner was a little too cozy. "I don't go to the dinner, I just go to this," she said. "What are you asking me is too cozy? That thing that I didn't go to that I don't know anything about? You should ask me about something else. I didn't go!"

The Observer asked MSNBC president Phil Griffin how the evening was going for him: "It gets better because, you know, we're making a statement," he said. "An event like this, we're letting everybody know, we're here. We're in Washington, a place for politics, we should be celebrated on a night like tonight. It's a night to let all the issues be put aside for one moment to step aside and enjoy yourself. O.K.?"

Eliot Spitzer entered the party. "I thought journalists weren't working tonight," he told The Observer.

At 1 a.m., Cee-Lo took the stage. The Observer squeezed its way over to Sarah Palin, holding court with the largest crowd at the party. Sean Penn was sitting across the room at a table with four other people, including REM's Michael Stipe. Ms. Palin, for her part, was vocal about the role of the press in such proximity to the president. "Well, I still would like the White House Press Corps to ask our president a bit tougher questions about where he really wants to go with this economy and does he understand and believe in free markets or does he really believe in government's ability to plan our economy for us? So I want the press corps to ask those questions!"

The next morning, the weather was nice in Pakistan--nice enough that Operation Geronimo received another green light. In Washington, it rained, but President Obama was reported to have played nine holes of golf.

Just after mid-day in the Hay-Adams Hotel Penthouse , the Reuters-McLaughlin Group Brunch was filling up; on the terrace, attendees noted a spectacular view of the White House. Inside, a caterer spilled an entire dish of butter onto The McLaughlin Group's Eleanor Clift.

Around 2 p.m., the president met with the core Operation Geronimo team before the final "go" order was given.

A few minutes before at the brunch, the Financial Times New York editor Gillian Tett was cornered by anti-tax lobbyist Mark A. Bloomfield, the president and CEO of the American Council for Capital Formation. Post-business-card exchange with Mr. Bloomfield, she talked to The Observer about her table's guests: "We had both the chairman of the S.E.C. and the chairman of the F.D.I.C. We weren't expecting to get both and they both said yes immediately. You know what's brilliant about the whole evening? Most of the time all these people would be at loggerheads, and at this, they're all relaxed."

"When you put them all in a room together and it's 3,000 people and it's all the show-business stuff, it looks kind of icky," said FT columnist John Gapper. "But actually, the reality is: How am I not supposed to not ever have lunch or talk with these people? You get a story out of it."

But the story was happening elsewhere. At 3:45 p.m. EST/12:45 a.m. PKT, explosions were heard by locals in Bilal Town, a suburb of Abbotabad.

An IT guy Abbotabad noted over Twitter: "A huge window shaking band here in Abbotabad Cantt. I hope it's not the start of something nasty :-S"

At 3:50 p.m.: Osama Bin Laden was "tentatively identified as dead."

At 7:01 p.m.: Osama Bin Laden was positively identified.

At 8:30 p.m.: President Barack Obama was given a final briefing on the operation.

And at 9:45 p.m., every major television network interrupted its broadcast with an update that the president would be briefing the nation. The Apprentice was cut short before America could find out who had been fired.

11:35 p.m.: News of the operation had already leaked out through unofficial outlets on Twitter feeds, some of which had been formerly sprinkled with the Correspondents Dinner's preferred cutesy moniker for itself: "#nerdprom." At 10:24 p.m., Donald Rumsfeld's Chief of Staff and Navy Reserve intel officer Keith Urbahn tweeted, "So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama bin Laden. Hot damn."

Then the president addressed the nation. Nearly ten years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden was dead.

The biggest story of 2011--the behind-the-scenes workings of which had happened within single-digit miles of the elite of the nation's press corps, in closer mass proximity to the president than they are at nearly any other time of the year--had broken.

And it had not leaked. Except perhaps at 10:24 to Urbahn, and via Dwayne Johnson, better known as The Rock. "Just got word that will shock the world - Land of the free... home of the brave DAMN PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!"

Mr. Johnson did not attend the dinner. 

kstoffel@observer.com, fkamer@observer.com

New to market 8 bdrm in quiet Bilal Town section of Abbottabad. Six yo compound on half-acre along quiet street. Huge picture windows frame rolling hills and fields of poppies, one-way, six-inch glass for privacy. All new appliances--SubZero, Miele, Viking, Kalashnikov. Incinerator makes fast work of trash, plus two WBF.  Stained-glass French doors open onto master suite with new crimson-dyed carpets. Needs cable, telephone. State of the art security system includes 12ft fence w/barbed wire and blast-proof balconies, secure up to SEAL Team 5. Close to all, 10 min to mil acad. Needs work. $995,000.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo