DOJ kill list memo forces many Dems out of the closet as overtly unprincipled hacks

The Guardian ^ | 11 Feb 2013 | Glenn Greenwald

[Theoria]

Last week's controversy over Obama's assassination program forced into light many ignored truths that were long obvious

This past week has been a strangely clarifying political moment. It was caused by two related events: the leak of the Justice Department's "white paper" justifying Obama's claimed power to execute Americans without charges, followed by John Brennan's alarming confirmation hearing (as Charles Pierce wrote: "the man whom the administration has put up to head the CIA would not say whether or not the president of the United States has the power to order the extrajudicial killing of a United States citizen within the borders of the United States"). I describe last week's process as "strange" because, for some reason, those events caused large numbers of people for the first time to recognize, accept and begin to confront truths that have long been readily apparent.

Illustrating this odd phenomenon was a much-discussed New York Times article on Sunday by Peter Baker which explained that these events "underscored the degree to which Mr. Obama has embraced some of Mr. Bush's approach to counterterrorism, right down to a secret legal memo authorizing presidential action unfettered by outside forces." It began this way:

"If President Obama tuned in to the past week's bracing debate on Capitol Hill about terrorism, executive power, secrecy and due process, he might have recognized the arguments his critics were making: He once made some of them himself.

"Four years into his tenure, the onetime critic of President George W. Bush finds himself cast as a present-day Mr. Bush, justifying the muscular application of force in the defense of the nation while detractors complain that he has sacrificed the country's core values in the name of security."

Baker also noticed this:

[lentulusgracchus]

Worse for them than us, because they did this! The blood will be on their hands.

Nah, they'll just turn their faces around --again-- and blame us. It's all our fault, permanently, because we are the Main Enemy.

Obama's successor will want the power arbitrarily to imprison people like Rush Limbaugh, and even execute them; and these people will want to give it to him "because it's the Right Thing to Do".

[Wuli]

Marxists are never concerned about the powers they complained that Bush was taking, as long as those powers are in their hands. To them, as with Obama, there is no internal contradiction in their minds when it comes to complaining about something someone is doing, and then doing that same thing themeselves. It was not the powers Bush was exercising that the Marxists didn’t trust, they didn’t trust Bush with them. Now that their political Messiah is in office, those same powers are fine in his hands.

No contradictions, juts politics.

I heard that justification clearly from a Leftist family friend some years ago. I was listing the many ways that Chavez in Venezuela was accumulating dictatorial powers, and my friend answered point blank, no emotion, no sarcasm, no defensive posture, totally deadpan serious - “well at least he’s a socialist”.

That’s the justification and that’s all the media needs as well. “It’s not a big deal ‘cause he’s one of us.”