The Rude Pundit: You Can Hate Obama for Drone Strikes and Support Him on Other Things

[meegbear]

Here, in paraphrase form, are a couple of the responses you get if you're a liberal who writes that you have a problem with the Obama administration's white paper on the legality of targeted killing of Americans who might have crapped in an al-Qaeda cave hole:

-- "Well, holy motherfuck, you're someone who's sucked Obama's dick for years now. Don't you look like quite the fool now with his dried semen on your upper lip."

-- "Well, it looks like a sound legal document to me. Murder the fuck out of these traitors."

-- "I'm a conservative, so I'm just gonna lick my own anus while you guys work this out."

Let's put aside any conservative who had no problem with torturing detainees but now has found a moral compass to condemn the extrajudicial murder of Americans, because, indeed, they can go fuck themselves with their opinion. And let's put aside the liberals who love when they get a chance to be bloodthirsty warriors and think that makes them wear their big boy/girl pants.

However, that first response there, the people who want you to know that they always thought Obama was a stone cold killer and how can you support him and, hey, asshole, you should support a real liberal, like this fucking loser who has no chance in a thousand fucking years in getting elected, and it's because of people like you and the corporate whores in the media that JillSteinRalphNaderCynthiaMcKinney aren't even invited to debate, yeah, that response belongs to people who don't live in reality. It's okay to be an idealist. It's okay to vote for someone you know doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell. The Rude Pundit voted for Nader once upon a time.

Of the candidates who had a chance this last election, who would you rather have in office? The guy who does drone strikes and supports gay rights, new gun laws, and at least marginally higher taxes on the wealthy? Or the guy who would have done drone strikes, cut taxes for the rich, probably started a war with Iran, and blocked any gun control legislation? 'Cause that was the choice we had. Back in 1964, would you have rather had Barry Goldwater? Or the dude who escalated the Vietnam War, but also signed civil rights laws?

Some of us are able to hold a couple of thoughts in our heads at once. Some of us can actually say, "You know, this thing Obama does is fucking appalling and I will work to stop it, but this other thing he's doing I support and will work to make sure it happens." (And if you say, "Well, Hitler did some good things," you don't have anything useful to contribute to the discussion, so go continue jacking off in a corner.)

It's not forgiveness. It's not acceptance. It's living in the world you have, not the world you want. If you're now done with Obama, then you better get off your ass and start finding a genuine third party candidate, someone the media can't ignore, whether it's a wealthy fuck like Ross Perot or a major politician who is willing to bail on his or her party because your heart will always be broken by Democrats.

We're not gonna change Obama on this. He thinks he gets to do this without any oversight at all, which is an interpretation of executive power that the right was perfectly willing to let George W. Bush have. Instead, you need to get the other two branches of government to step the fuck up and act like they are co-equal.

Call your members of Congress and get them to zero out funding for the targeted killing program. You can make all the laws you want, ones that will be met with signing statements and then lawsuits that go on forever. Instead, do what Congress had the balls to do with Ronald Reagan and the Contras in Nicaragua and passed the Boland Amendment (which Reagan ignored, but at least that was a scandal), and cut the off the cash.

And while you're doing that, you can still clap when Obama says he thinks that the Boy Scouts should allow gay troops and leaders. And you can still boo when he talks about idiotic budget cuts. And you can still cheer when he signs a universal background check law. And then you can boo when...

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2013/02/you-can-hate-obama-for-drone-strikes.html

[kickysnana]

1. "Hitler must not have been too bad he gave out medals to people for helping old people"

My wingnut ex-uncle, with medal in hand, talking to my JAG bil several years ago.

[Marr]

2. So any decent human being-- certainly any liberal-- should condemn drone strikes then. Gotcha.

That's fine. What I'm seeing here, however, is his biggest fans *defending* drone strikes, pretty obviously because it was Obama who did it.

[msongs]

3. bush did it = bad, obama does it = good nt

[BlancheSplanchnik]

4. well that's not at all what the R.P. said.

It does suck so fight it. Note: fight this policy not Obama himself and everything he does.

[JaneyVee]

5. FDR had internment camps, Truman presided over the near apocalypse of 2 cities, LBJ had Vietnam,

Obama has drones. Where did the notion that Liberal presidents are soft on terror come from?

[Merlot]

6. Obama's bringing it to the light of day

"He thinks he gets to do this without any oversight at all, which is an interpretation of executive power that the right was perfectly willing to let George W. Bush have. Instead, you need to get the other two branches of government to step the fuck up and act like they are co-equal."

Obama has said on many occasions that WE THE PEOPLE have to make him make changes. Maybe he's aware that this is to much power for any one president to have. Maybe that's why he sent Brennen around to bring this policy in the open, and why he released the white paper. He wants us to know what's happening here. Then if we have enough outrage, we make it change. If not, it's business as usual.

If it were bushco, we would still be in the dark about this policy. That's the difference here. I'm not saying that because Obama decided to go public with this it makes it ok that he's doing it, I'm saying he's now given us the option to do something about it...if we are outraged.