Matt Lewis poses a good question today about whether Americans are really, deep down, pretty okay with drones whacking people all around the world.
Still, in my estimation, President Obama has been consistent in practicing what I call "politically correct warfare" — which is to say that for most Americans, these drone strikes are out-of-sight, out-of-mind.
And here's the ugly truth: Obama is giving us what we want.
We have an unspoken agreement with the president. Obama never promised America he wouldn't kill people more aggressively than his predecessor. But with a wink and a nod, he gave us plausible deniability.
Americans, it turns out, don't really have the stomach for the unseemly business of taking prisoners, extracting information from prisoners, and then (maybe) going through the emotional, time consuming, and costly business of a trial.
Is he right?
What's also amazing is the double-standard being applied to this president versus his predecessor. You can see it on full display in this segment from last night's Hardball program on MSNBC, where Chris Matthews expresses little concern about the intelligence-based targeted killing of Americans with drones, yet offers a throw-away line about how bad intel led to us into Iraq.
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And how about that "great question" Matthews offered: "If someone joins an army that is determined to destroy the United States... is that person still an American?"
