Why Rand Paul is right and Lawrence O’Donnell is wrong…this time!
In order to form an opinion about a political issue I tend to switch back and forth between Fox News and MSNBC whenever a hot political topic is being discussed. Not that any one of these two networks does a good job at reporting the facts, but at least you get to hear the extreme side of the argument, which in turn allows you to make up your own mind. Mind you, a lot of times I end up moving to the center in my conclusion as it not only is the most sensible solution to the issue on-hand, but also because it would have the most support among American voters and thus have the greatest chance of passing through Congress.
Last night Lawrence O’Donnell decided to pick a fight with tea party favorite Senator Rand Paul about his filibuster show-boating the night before in the Senate. Lawrence was livid that the Senator used extreme rhetoric in making his point through the filibuster and Lawrence made no excuse about it that he thought this was a pathetic display of partisanship by the Senator. The issue on-hand of course was the fact that Senator Rand Paul was upset that the Senate was about to vote to approve the nomination of John Brennan, who had the backing of President Obama and the Democratic Party, but neither John Brennan nor the attorney General of the U.S. (Eric Holder) had answered the question as to whether the President of the United States has the authority to kill an American citizen on American soil via a drone strike!
The answers given over the past few weeks left open the question as to whether this would actually be legal. It’s been known for over a decade now that the U.S. has been very active in assassinating Al-Queda members, especially in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. But when the question arose by congressional members in hearings as to whether the U.S. government would ever consider assassinating a U.S. citizen it was never told yes or no, which…as you can imagine is an issue.
Senator Rand Paul is absolutely right in his argument that there needs to be a clear divide between assassinating Americans abroad or here on U.S. soil. When a U.S. citizen is a suspect of aiding foreign enemies and he’s hiding out in remote areas of Yemen it’s a stretch to go ask the FBI to send a team over there to apprehend the suspect. It’s simply to dangerous to go through that type of operation. Just the fact that you would jeopardize other lives to capture this suspect doesn’t warrant the risk, hence why it’s much easier, cheaper and more efficient to send a drone instead and take out the suspect (American or not). However, when the same suspect (American in this case) is wondering around on the streets of New York City it simply doesn’t make sense to target the suspect via a drone. A special FBI team can do the job without risking lives, as they would operate in friendly territory as opposed to Yemen for example.
It seems straight forward that in these cases the U.S. President should not be allowed to send a drone over American airspace armed with a deadly hellfire missile. A simple memo by the U.S. justice department would’ve been sufficient to put this dangerous hypothetical situation to rest, but no. Neither the White House nor the U.S. Justice Department could muster up a simple memo to declare that they simply did not have the authority to authorize such strike on its own citizens without due process on American soil.
This is why Senator Rand Paul was so upset, and deservedly so. He had every right to make his point by using the filibuster as his platform to get attention. After more than 12 hours the spectacle in the Senate was over and Eric Holder relented by issuing a two sentence memo making it absolutely clear that under no circumstances the U.S. President would be allowed to order a drone strike over American soil against American citizens unless there is imminent danger, such as a terrorist strike in progress.
CASE CLOSED!!! Rand Paul won, Eric Holder and the White House lost. This was a blunder by Obama, make no mistake about it. The fact that Lawrence O’Donnell can’t see that is a shame. His hatred for the tea party is so great that his blinders refuse to see the fact that this was a good thing that Senator Rand Paul did and Obama failed to lead in this case. Accept it…move on.
That’s why it’s a good idea to listen to both sides of the argument. One side isn’t always right…
