Final bin Laden tally: 21 mentions at Democratic convention

If you’ve been watching the Democratic convention, you’re surely aware by now that Osama bin Laden is very much dead — and Barack Obama gave the order to kill him.

On Wednesday, I started keeping track of how many times Democrats mentioned the former al Qaeda leader in their speeches. There were seven references on the first night, no references on the second night, and 14 references on the third and final night, bringing the grand total to 21, or 20 more than at the Republican convention.

The most memorable lines goes to John Kerry. "Ask Osama bin Laden if he is better off now than he was four years ago," the Massachusetts senator crowed.

"Was there this much bragging about killing Hitler at the 1948 convention?" Slate’s Dave Weigel asked on Twitter.  It turns out neither Harry Truman nor Thomas Dewey mentioned it. Of course, Hitler had committed suicide only days after Truman took office in April 1945.