The White House botched the rollout of the greatest success of Barack Obama's presidency.

The screwups began last Sunday when we learned U.S. Navy SEALs had killed Osama bin Laden in his million-dollar "hideout" in the resort town of Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The White House asked the networks for time at 10:30 p.m. EDT. But it was more than an hour later before Mr. Obama spoke. By then the news had leaked out, and many people had gone to bed.

We're told the delay was because the president was still working on his remarks. If so, it wasn't worth it.

"The first part of the announcement, evoking 9/11, was vulgarly overwritten," said Washington Post film critic Stephen Hunter. "The adjective-bloated compote was unworthy of the subject, banal and self indulgent."

The awkwardness of the delivery of the news was little noticed in our euphoria over the substance of it. But subsequent White House screwups are fraught with consequences.

John Brennan, the president's counterterrorism adviser, told reporters Monday that bin Laden, gun in hand, was killed while trying to use his wife as a human shield. On Tuesday, the White House backtracked. Bin Laden wasn't armed. He didn't try to use his wife as a human shield.

Mr. Brennan may merely have been confused about the details. But shouldn't the counterterrorism adviser know such details before talking to reporters?

Bin Laden was buried at sea within 24 hours as Muslim tradition requires. Some conservatives have groused about this. Their sniping is misplaced. Feeding bin Laden to the fishes keeps his grave site from becoming a shrine. And there was no point in gratuitously offending some Muslims by delaying his burial.

But the quick disposal of the body made it imperative for the administration to promptly make public proof that bin Laden is dead.

Instead, the White House fretted about releasing photos of bin Laden's corpse and eventually decided not to, mainly because they're "gruesome." Most Americans would enjoy seeing a body recognizable as bin Laden with half his head blown off. And such a photo would send a message to our enemies.

The dithering and confusion in the White House last week was reminiscent more of the dithering and confusion over Libya than of the bold, decisive president who ordered the risky hit on bin Laden. And that president succeeded only by ignoring his views as a candidate in 2008.

When President Obama sent SEAL Team Six rather than the FBI after bin Laden, he opted for a military solution. Candidate Obama said terrorism was primarily a law enforcement problem.

Vital clues to bin Laden's whereabouts came from al-Qaida bigwigs interrogated in secret CIA prisons and at Guantanamo Bay. Two apparently didn't divulge their secrets until they were waterboarded.

Waterboarding is torture, Candidate Obama said. He promised to close Gitmo, but it's still open.

The bold risk taker is so different from the passive, tentative, risk-averse president we'd seen before that some doubt Mr. Obama played as substantive a role in the bin Laden hit as the White House is claiming.

"I believe that President Obama's hand was forced in this," said "Gregg," who said he was a retired Navy SEAL, in a call Tuesday to the Rush Limbaugh program.

Reports that the president kept the SEALs waiting for 16 hours before giving the green light sound more like the Barack Obama we're familiar with. In the end he said "go," and for that he deserves praise and thanks. But if and when all the details come out, they're unlikely to be as flattering as the White House claims.

Liberals praise Mr. Obama for doing what many condemned George W. Bush for doing. The motive for their hypocrisy seems nakedly partisan. "I would hate now to be a Republican candidate thinking of running," said ABC's Barbara Walters.

After the liberation of Kuwait, President George H.W. Bush's popularity soared to a then-record high of 89 percent. Liberal smugness would vanish if they remembered the elder Mr. Bush got just 37 percent of the vote 19 months later because voters were unhappy with an economy that was in better shape than ours is today.

First Published: May 8, 2011, 4:00 a.m.