Drones, Continued

So, this happened:

White House press secretary Jay Carney on Thursday tried to put to rest a simmering debate over President Barack Obama's drone policy, stating in clear terms that the president doesn't have the legal authority to, hypothetically, order drone strikes on Americans on U.S. soil.

During his daily briefing, Carney read aloud a short letter that went out Thursday afternoon from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who waged a 13-hour filibuster on Wednesday over Obama's secret use of drones to carry out targeted killings. Throughout the effort, Paul, along with a dozen other Republican senators, demanded to know whether Obama believed he had the right to order drone strikes on U.S. citizens on U.S soil.

Carney said the answer is no.

"It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: 'Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?,'" Carney read aloud. "The answer to that question is no."

Naturally, my immediate response was: But the president does have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American who is actually or assumed to be engaged in combat on American soil? Because, um.

I'm sure I'm just being silly. It's not like the US government would ever define "enemy combatants" so vaguely as to appear to leave room for ideological opponents of a sitting administration to qualify. Ha ha it's not like there's ever been an administration, and I'm sure there will never be again, who spoke of US citizens as being traitors for dissenting with a (terrible) national policy decision. It's not like a president saying "you're with us or against us" was ever a fucking real thing in the world.

The Obama administration is setting a precedent for an authority no administration should ever have, and some even less so than others.

For the record: I oppose the use of drones on people outside this country, too.