Osama bin Laden is still dead. An accomplishment the Obama administration should be, and clearly is, proud of. The handling of this accomplishment has been such an atrocity it has managed to diminish the achievement. Don’t believe me? Mark Halperin from Time Magazine list the Administration’s five biggest mistakes:

1. Not getting its story straight: Was bin Laden armed or not? What woman served as a human shield? Who actually was killed beyond the main target? The administration deserves mountains of credit for its painstaking, conspicuous effort to brief the world on the mission, knowing a lot of information would have to be held back to protect sources, operatives, methods, and sensitive data. Which makes the carelessness of the errors somewhat surprising. The costs: the media coverage sours, the President’s opponents (especially on talk radio) go crazy, other details of the mission unfairly get called into question, and the wild theories of global enemies and conspiracy seekers get a foothold.

2. Not giving George W. Bush enough credit for helping bring bin Laden to justice: Even if the White House believes the previous occupant had nothing to do with OBL’s ultimate demise, it would have been better for national unity and Obama’s own political fortunes if he had gone out of his way to thank 43. His invitation to Bush to join the event Thursday at Ground Zero (an offer declined) was the right idea, but belated.

3. Letting the photo debate get out of control: The decision about whether to release images of a dead bin Laden is not an easy one. But the administration’s conflicting statements and public agonizing has created an extended distraction. The White House has stumbled by violating one of Washington’s iron rules: when something becomes famous inside the Beltway for not being released, the pressure from the media to release it becomes unrelenting.

4. Letting the debate about the war in Afghanistan get out of control: There are signs that some of the president’s advisers are looking to scale back the commitment in Afghanistan sooner rather than later. But by failing to go on the offensive in defining and defending whatever policy the President wants to pursue, the White House has allowed those pressing for an end of the war to use bin Laden’s death as rhetorical leverage.

5. Letting the debate about Pakistan get out of control: The congressional and media demand for a radical change in America’s relationship with Pakistan is burning like wildfire. The administration knows that a shift in policy is complicated and compromising, and not necessarily in the United States’ interest. Stoking the problem: executive branch officials, publicly and privately, are expressing incredulity that the Pakistanis were unaware bin Laden was hiding in plain sight in their country. There should be and will be a debate about all this, but the administration’s actions and inactions is making it less likely it will be on their terms.

 More often than not, I disagree with Mark Halperin, but his analysis here is accurate. Many pundits have been saying, because Obama got bin Laden, he is now inoculated from any attacks by the Republicans on national security. It would appear the candidates participating in the first Republican debate disagree. While they, in the words of Tim Pawlenty, “tip their hats” to President Obama for getting bin Laden, they did not hesitate to blast him for what they perceive as his many national security mistakes. I believe if not for the mistakes made by the Administration in the aftermath of their success, the Republicans would have been reluctant to go after the President on foreign policy, less than a week after its greatest accomplishment.

There will be time enough to examine these mistakes, but the biggest mistake the President continues to make is the constant reference to himself. The night of the announcement we heard “I gave the order.” Yesterday, at Fort Campbell KY the President said: “When I gave they order, they were ready.” Is it so difficult to say “When the order was given, they were ready?” This was supposed to be about the troops, Mr President. We all know who gave the order, you have told us enough times.