The new symbol of the Republican Party?
Who knew conservatives were, at heart, a bunch of dirty fucking hippies?
That's the new meme coming from the right. Fox's Shep Smith wants to know if "anyone talking about the fact that this is illegal, this operation was illegal, or is that a matter that's going to be left for another day?"
And on his Fox show Freedom Watch, Andrew Napolitano declared that the assassination is dangerous and unlawful:
This business of the president deciding to kill people is very dangerous and very unlawful. Put aside that governmental assassination is a violation of the Constitution. Put aside that this killing was not in self-defense and was without a declaration of war. Put aside the law that the president may never order the killing of civilians—period. And put aside that governmental killing violates at least four treaties and three federal statutes.
Right. So now the Constitution and various treaties are of utmost importance. Back in the Bush years, they were, according to White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, "quaint" and "obsolete."
And back then, conservatives weren't clutching their pearls about Bush's "dead or alive" mandate:
On Sept. 17, after Bush remarked that bin Laden is "wanted dead or alive," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Executive Order 12333, signed Dec. 4, 1981, by President Ronald Reagan, remains in effect. Like its counterparts under Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter, Executive Orders 11905 and 12306, the directive forbids assassination but does not define the term. Fleischer declined four times to interpret the text. "I'm going to just repeat my words and others will figure out the exact implications of them, but it does not inhibit the nation's ability to act in self-defense," he said.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, speaking Oct. 15, went slightly further.
"It is certainly within the president's power to direct that, in our self-defense, we take this battle to the terrorists and that means to the leadership and command and control capabilities of terrorist networks," he said.
And remember when Karl Rove explained the difference between conservatives and liberals?
Conservatives saw the savagery of 9-11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9-11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.
But since it was President Obama who succeeded where Bush failed, now conservatives are oh-so-concerned about the legality of killing the world's number one evil doer.
Heck, even the Dalai Lama thinks the killing of OBL was justified. And he doesn't even believe in killing mosquitoes!
Congratulations, conservatives. Your single-minded, obsessive devotion to criticizing Obama, even when he does exactly what you've wanted for the past decade, has now put you to the left of the Dalai Lama.
Guess we'll see you at the next peace march.