Obama: “Anyone questioning that bin Laden got what he deserved, should have their heads examined”

Psychiatrist R.D. Laing's definition of insanity differs from that of President Obama

In the aftermath of bin Laden’s death, celebrated in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere by dancing in the streets, a woman named Jessica Dovey posted on her Facebook wall her personal response to the event:

“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.”

She followed up those sentiments with a quote by MLK, Jr. ,

“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Dovey’s Facebook post immediately went viral suggesting that many people were uncomfortable equating the execution of an unarmed bad guy with justice.

Kristen Breitweiser, a 9/11 widow and activist, was also not in a celebratory mood. She wrote:

I think about the thousands of lives lost -- American, Afghani, Iraqi. I know firsthand the sorrow those families have felt. I ponder how the billions -- maybe trillions -- of dollars could have been better spent. I remain alarmed about the continued expansion of absolute Executive power in the name of fighting this seemingly ongoing and never-ending "war on terror." I worry about the further erosion of our constitutional rights. I wonder when our troops will ever be called home. I know all too well, that thousands of young American men and women soldiers will never have the opportunity to return home. And of course, I fear reprisal.

But more than anything, I cannot seem to remove the optics of the giddy, gleeful throngs of Americans who took to the streets celebrating in the early morning hours.

Forgive me, but I don't want to watch uncorked champagne spill onto hallowed ground where thousands were murdered in cold blood.

Then came President Obama’s Sunday night interview on 60 Minutes with Steve Croft in which Obama presented himself as a decisive leader empowered in the end to overrule the biblical injunction, “Judge not that ye be not judged,” not only in his ruling that the unarmed bin Laden deserved to be executed without benefit of trial, but also in questioning the sanity of anyone who argued there was a difference between revenge and justice.

Croft’s final question to President Obama dealt with the issue of his decision to order the killing of bin Laden. Obama said, "As nervous as I was about this whole process, the one thing I didn't lose sleep over was the possibility of taking bin Laden out."

He continued, “Anyone who would question that the perpetrator of 9/11 - mass murder on American soil - didn’t’ get what he deserved needs to have their head examined.” (This quote occurs at the very end of the interview.)

Poet and psychiatrist R.D. Laing once defined insanity as “a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.”  Watching President Obama in that 60 Minutes interview, one could easily conclude the intelligent, well-educated, coolly thoughtful Barack Obama, arguably the most powerful leader in the world, has made that perfectly rational adjustment.