An editorial in the New York Times, “The Myth of Obama’s Weakness,” says the "audacious decision to attack the Bin Laden compound in Pakistan has demolished the notion that he cannot make tough decisions or cares primarily about the nation’s image abroad."

Ah, never say never. Like the belief the President was born in Kenya, the belief that the President is a wimp refuses to die. The birthers are now wimpers.

Yesterday I spotted this headline from the British tabloid, The Daily Mail: “Obama took SIXTEEN HOURS to make up his mind about Bin Laden mission.” Beneath the deadline was a blurb: “President ‘slept on it’ as tense military chiefs awaited decision.”

This does jive with the account given in Time magazine, but somehow it sounds different in Time. It was a difficult decision. Lives were at stake, not to mention a presidency. The case for doing the mission was not clear cut. It was not at all unreasonable for the President to take a few hours to decide.

But merely by popping out the words “sixteen hours,” the Daily Mail kept hope alive, never mind that the Daily Mail is mostly known for losing libel suits to defamed celebrities. Thanks to the capitalization of some letters, wingnuts could still call the President a wimp.

Since then, from somewhere in the rightie hive mind has come the fiction that President Obama wasn’t even involved in the decision to raid the compound –

“What Valerie Jarrett, and the president, did not know is that Leon Panetta had already initiated a program that reported to him –and only him, involving a covert on the ground attack against the compound.”

This site claims to have solid information from a “Washington Insider” — who remains unnamed, of course — that President Obama could not make a decision, but was “overruled” by “military/intelligence officials,” and the actual decision to raid the compound was made by Leon Panetta.

I rather doubt the director of the CIA has the authority to order Navy SEALs to so much as make lunch, but let’s not let reality get in the way of a good conspiracy theory, eh?

The usual loons — Pam Geller et al. — are adding their own unique details to this story. Soon they’ll be saying that the President had to be locked in the basement for several hours so that he couldn’t get word to bin Laden to leave the compound.