Where are all the death penalty opponents?

It has become increasingly apparent that Osama bin Laden was executed, rather than killed while "reaching for a gun," as the Obama administration initially claimed. And even if Barack himself didn't personally instruct Seal Team Six specifically to kill bin Laden, it's stretches credulity to think that this was not tacitly understood to be the aim of the mission all along.

Which brings up the question of the death penalty.

Death penalty opponents tend to pick their poster boys (and girls) very carefully. They try to publicize cases where there might be a modicum of doubt, or where the condemned person's comeliness might play upon the public's sympathies more effectively.

They have wisely chosen not to make bin Laden their poster boy to demonstrate the brutality and inherent unfairness of the death penalty. Admittedly, this was not the usual court-ordered, due process, three-decades-on-Death-Row scenario. And Seal Team Six is not Old Sparky.

Nonetheless, it is clear that bin Laden was executed.

And it was the Obama administration which originally wanted to try terrorists as civilians -- witness Eric Holder's long effort to have Khalid Sheik Mohammed tried in New York City as a common criminal, rather than in Guantanamo as an enemy combatant. Mohammed had a direct role in the 9/11 killings; if he is not an enemy combatant, then neither was Osama bin Laden. Both men were on the same team, guided by the same ideology, and involved in the same killings.

Yet bin Laden was put down as if he were a rabid dog.

And what do the death penalty opponents have to say about this? So far, nothing. There has only been the proverbial deafening silence.

Maybe Eric Holder, who is currently trying to prosecute the CIA operatives who were involved in the waterboarding which elicited the information which allowed the CIA to track down bin Laden, should now bring a wrongful death suit against the White House.