Osama bin Laden was a divisive figure in life but in death he brought together an unholy trinity of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Barack Obama – with Limbaugh and Beck, two of Obama's harshest critics, uniting in praise of Obama's action.

"We need to open the programme today by congratulating President Obama," Limbaugh declared on his daily syndicated radio show on Monday. "President Obama has done something extremely effective, and when he does, this needs to be pointed out."

As always with Limbaugh, his words were laden with sarcasm, poking fun at the idea that Obama single-handedly executed the mission:

Thank God for President Obama. If he had not been there, who knows what would have happened. It was only Obama who understood the need to get DNA, to prove that this was Bin Laden that we had assassinated.

And there were backhanded compliments from Limbaugh as well: "We need to never forget that President Obama deserves praise for continuing the policies established by George W Bush which led to the acquisition of this intel that led us to the enlarged hut in Pakistan that led to the assassination of Bin Laden last night."

Glenn Beck was even more effusive than Limbaugh in his radio talk show on Monday, saying: "First of all, congratulations to President Obama. He got him."



Beck's praise echoed Limbaugh in thanking god for Obama, although without Limbaugh's trademark tongue-in-cheek note:

Thank God we have a president who actually authorized the shoot to kill. That is a surprising shock to me. And I think that deserves to be said, that I didn't think that this president would actually pull the trigger – well, he didn't, but have somebody pull the trigger – and he did. Congratulations, President Obama. Thank you for doing the right thing on this.

Other Republican and conservative commentators also praised Obama in a rare outbreak of bipartisanship. Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, blogged:

Congratulations to all those, from the president on down, who are responsible for the achievement of tracking down and killing Osama bin Laden. The wheels of justice may sometimes turn slowly, but turn they do – with the help of the United States armed forces and intelligence personnel. Justice has been done.

But not every red-blooded Republican was able to offer even faint praise. Sarah Palin was almost alone in a churlish silence on the White House's role in Bin Laden's death, skipping over the administration to praise the US military in a Facebook post: