Rep. Buck McKeon (R., Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, called the bin Laden killing “symbolically huge” but predicted any impact on the course of Congress would be short-lived.

“I remember 9/11, and I remember how we all did come together. But it only lasted a couple of weeks, and I don’t expect any long-lasting changes to come from this,” said Mr. McKeon. “I don’t think it will have a thing to do with the debt limit vote or passing the appropriations bills. I really don’t.”…

Mr. McInturff looked at prior presidents who faced rallying moments due to foreign crises or successes—John Kennedy after the Cuban Missile Crisis, George W. Bush after the capture of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and 10 other incidents—and found an average bump of 13 percentage points in presidential job approval, which faded after 22 weeks. He excluded Mr. Bush’s experience after the Sept. 11 attacks, which saw a far larger approval-rating jump lasting nearly two years.

For Mr. Obama, the biggest political benefit of his handling of the hunt for bin Laden could be in answering critics of his foreign policy.