Glenn Greenwald defend Rand Paul against "Democratic myths"

[stupidicus]

87. Sure

as long as you misunderstand or change the designated destination, which in this case, is the mere raising of broader awareness of the issue of drone use/s, making discussion and debate on the merits unavoidable. What it isn't is an endorsement of RP's povs in whole or in part, just complete support for having the issue itself raised to such a high profile.

Reposting/linking to your spin on the alleged spin isn't helpful. Efforts to get the WH to define what's what with their potential use of drones, etc, as part of the pres "war powers" domestically, is not a bad thing no matter how "bad" or "wacky" or "hypocritical" the person is that prompts or pursues it, and the focus on the messenger as opposed to the message is always weak if not completely impotent as a rebuttal tool. Getting BHO to let down the veil of secrecy and to provide explanations for this and that, has been like pulling his teeth, starting with as an example, the memo recently put in the public sphere that raised concerns over things like "what does imminent really mean" that RP's effort was regardless of his self-serving reasons for having done so.

ANd no matter what you or I think of RP or the the hack, and generally disgusting individual Cruz, despite the fact that their legislative effort is stupid given that such executions shouldn't be limited to drone use alone, it appears to me as if the effort itself is intended to confine such killings to those circumstances wherein the commonly understood meaning of "imminent" is applied, not one pulled off of the ladder of abstraction or out of the meaning revising machine.

Prior to Wednesday, Paul and others in the Senate asked over and over for confirmation that American citizens were not in danger of being killed on American soil. The question was itself hospitably narrow: There was no challenge to the legality of killing foreigners on American soil, to the kill list, to drone strikes on international soil, to the arbitrary (secretive, procedure-less) executions of foreigners deemed a threat.

Yet, the White House’s response was silence, evasion from the president himself, or circumspection. On Wednesday afternoon, Attorney General Eric Holder explicitly affirmed that “in extraordinary circumstances,” the president could indeed authorize drone strikes. One day later, Holder issued another answer, which was falsely framed as confirming the limits of the president’s ability to drone Americans on U.S. soil. In fact, Holder reiterated more precisely that the Obama administration reserved the right to kill Americans engaged in combat on American soil. White House press spokesman Jay Carney appeared to make Holder’s statement more definitive (watch at 00:20), stating that “The president has not and would not use drone strikes against American citizens on American soil.”

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/08/the_invisible_shrinking_democrats/

The only spin I'm seeing here is that being used to undermine everything RP did and said based on things that neither impinge upon the desirability and need for this admin to come clean on all the criteria used in the decision making process, nor does it undermine the fact that it would never be forthcoming absent such efforts no matter by whom or by what the inquiries are motivated. Hell, the whole thing was under a veil of secrecy for years http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=drones%20%22told%20not%20to%20discuss%20them%22%20%20axelrod&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&ved=0CEsQtwIwAw&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftv.msnbc.com%2F2013%2F02%2F24%2Frobert-gibbs-i-was-told-not-even-to-acknowledge-the-drone-program%2F&ei=ueQ9UauDFOTWyQHFhYGoCQ&usg=AFQjCNHwbB7XTpZhCvIhabSY8n_h9qfosw&bvm=bv.43287494,d.aWc (when you're hiding something, the presumption that you have something to hide is a reasonable and a no brainer) so what better time to apply pressure for more answers than when he's appointing "Mr. Drone" himself to head up drone central?

spin away, I'm done here. RP being a jackass, hypocrite, political opportunist, etc, etc, etc, generally speaking has nothing to do with the need for what he did, and no more invalidates the need for BHO to answer these questions and a debate over the issue, than OBL declaring the sky blue makes it some other color. The biggest crime RP committed in this instance is serving as a distraction as the subject droners wanna focus on and keep the public occupied with. Those of us that have concersn about and objections to the way BHO's been using them, can see right through this crap, as evidenced by many of the responses you've gotten here.