This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012. I'm Caleb Brown.

It's been a year since the military raid that killed Osama bin Laden,

but for many pundits it seems that al-Qaeda may never die that is if

we believe that every group aspiring to destruction should be treated as an

existential threat so says John Mueller a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

President Obama is trying to, I think it's pretty clear, make political hay out of the fact that

we've crossed over this anniversary.

He made a surprise trip to Afghanistan,

has been visiting wounded soldiers

to sort of shore up some of his credentials

in terms of supporting the military.

From your assessment, what does this anniversary mean, if anything?

Well, it doesn't mean very much. I've been impressed by the number of people who keep seeing

Al-Qaeda under every bush and all these

connections to groups that are long way away and are basically fairly minimal

actors and insofar as they do act are mostly dealing with local forces.

I do think Obama's approaches, you know, basically smart politics.

One way of looking at it is, although he didn't get a great deal of a bump that lasted

when he when Osama bin Laden was was killed his popularity ratings went up you know quite a for a while, but it was back down again within

three or four weeks.

It's obviously a good thing to have on your resume.

And probably what it does is take foreign policy off the agenda.

...