The Contemptible Failure of Liberals to Denounce Obama's Targeted Killings

The Contemptible Failure of Liberals to Denounce Obama’s Targeted Killings

78 percent of respondents to a poll on MSNBC’s The Ed Show said they agreed with the “policy of targeted killing of American citizens,” despite host Ed Schultz arguing that the policy “doesn’t meet the moral or the constitutional standard that we expect of any administration…We’re losing the moral high ground by doing this…”

MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews defended the wisdom of granting the President and his administration the powers of prosecutor, jury, judge, and executioner by stating that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta “is a conscientious guy. He goes to church every day.”

Toure, an MSNBC pundit and Obama supporter, vociferously defended U.S. drone policy on The Cycle, stating “It’s hard to say, ‘let’s not do things because we might radicalize other people,” to which Glenn Beck protege S.E. Cupp responded, “but that was the argument under Bush.” Indeed it was.

This Fairleigh Dickinson University poll shows little disagreement between liberals and conservatives when it comes to drone strikes and the targeted killings of U.S. citizens. The Presidential debate on foreign policy between Obama and Romney revealed few differences in opinion, aside from the semantics of how harshly we should denounce Iran and how warmly we should embrace Israel.

Many alleged liberals and progressives have revealed not an ideological or intellectual consistency but rather an unthinking devotion to one person. Their judgment is so clouded by a cult of personality that they’ve allowed a President theoretically restricted by laws to simply discard the Fifth Amendment in exchange for the almost dictatorial power of determining who is guilty or innocent and who deserves to live or die. This power, when manifested in leaders of other countries, is routinely denounced as undemocratic. Yet, when wielded by someone liberals like, it becomes a necessary tactic to defend the homeland.

Although the scale of abuse and suffering is not comparable, drone strikes may be the Democratic Party’s contemporary Vietnam, in the sense that an overreaction to a threat (then Communism, now terrorism) has resulted in an almost imperialistic lawlessness. The ideology that fights for civil rights and the alleviation of poverty domestically has obliterated those things for innocent civilians abroad.

What will the arguments be when this power, now codified by President Obama, falls into the outstretched arms of someone liberals don’t trust; someone such as, say, Marco Rubio or Chris Christie? Will the reckless killing of suspected terrorists and hundreds of civilians become a national security necessity or will it suddenly morph into a dangerous and counter-productive war crime?

Every day that these drone strikes continue unabated, liberals lose all credibility and lose the support of those among them who genuinely support the struggle for social justice and peace.