By Adam Bitely–Sen. John McCain caused a stir on the day following the filibuster led by Rand Paul against Obama’s CIA nominee John Brennan over whether the President could use drones to kill U.S. citizens on American soil, when he called the people involved in the filibuster wacko birds.
“But I also think that when, you know, it’s always the wacko birds on right and left that get the media megaphone,” said McCain about the coverage of the filibuster the day before.
Clearly, McCain thinks it’s “wacko” to question whether or not the President would use a power that his Attorney General claimed he had. When clarifying who he was referring to, McCain said Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Justin Amash and others like them.
George Mason University Professor of Economics Don Boudreaux asked the following question in a letter-to-the-editor to the Baltimore Sun:
“In what universe is a human being, one called ‘president of the United States,’ who cannot be trusted to spend other people’s money wisely — who is held to be rash and irresponsible when pushing legislation to extend health-insurance coverage — who is regarded as arrogant and ignorant for his support of greater government regulation of financial markets — who is accused of being a dangerous social engineer when he launches schemes to redistribute wealth — who is exposed as a typical, high-on-hubris, popularity-grabbing politician who never lets his incomprehension of matters soothe his itch to tax, spend, and issue diktats all in ways that conservatives correctly understand to be destructive — in what universe is such a person to be trusted and saluted as Our Protector and as a paragon of prudence whenever he turns his attention to deploying military force?”
Conservatives shouldn’t just question why Obama should have that authority, they should question why any President should have that authority.
As ALG Senior Editor Robert Romano noted, “In a Feb. 20 letter to Brennan, Paul had asked, ‘Do you believe the President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial?’ Brennan’s answers to his inquiries had been to state that the U.S. ‘has not carried out’ such strikes and ‘has no intention of doing so.’”
With answers like that, you would be “wacko” not to press for further clarification.
But why should conservatives roll over when it comes to these security issues? Conservatives didn’t roll over in their suspicion of Obamacare, bailouts to Wall Street, stimulus spending and so-called “shovel ready” jobs. Why should they just expect the President, who they believe is misusing power, to act just and right in that one action?
Conservatives should always question every action, power and policy the government makes, takes or enacts. And they should never stop. After all, it is hardly wacko to ask whether someone who claims to have the power to kill you actually will.
Adam Bitely is the Editor-in-Chief of NetRightDaily.com. You can follow NetRightDaily on Twitter at @NetRightDaily.
