I published the first diary/poll on Drone attacks here on September 30, 2011 after the vaporization of U.S. citizen, Islamic cleric and al Qaeda recruiter, Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen on the same day.
The results of that poll are here: This Terrorist was an American Citizen
The question was: Do you believe we should use Airstrikes to Assassinate suspected Terrorists?
The results were 40% yes, 26% no. This was just as Occupy Wall Street was taking hold and the reverberations into casual lefty assumptions was still lagging on sites like this.
The second poll I did was in September of 2012 here: Poll:Drone Attacks PC Here
The results on the same question: 54% yes, 28% no. Which goes to show that the site had become even more reactionary in view of the coming national election. That's understandable but odd when you think about how little Occupy Wall Street had on a site such as dkos.
But since those heady days the Drone Wars have gone viral. Other sites, other voices have given the issue the urgency along with the twist of irony it richly deserved all along. The ability of our more"edgy" ( as G.Greenwald would put it ) blogs and communities to inoculate themselves from the glaring disconnect from political realities in the wake of growing protests and the critical mass taking place across our political landscape. Some would say that disconnect allowed certain poseurs on the right an opportunity to co-opt the issue. Shame on us.
So it is time once again to gauge if any of this has any effect in partisanville. Is the community here still despairingly unaffected by the implications of such crass, secretive and unconstitutional power mongering by the current administration or has it finally woken up to what the rest of the country now feels is a dangerous confirmation that our constitution is now a quaint historical inconvenience to the Executive branch.
The question is not just reserved for Drone attacks here or against American citizens. It's a general question about airstrikes of any sort and assassination of suspected terrorists. There are of course larger issues at stake than just the one that held up the Brennen confirmation and Rand Paul's concerns. It's always been all encompassing as this poll has framed it just so the general opinion can express itself and not just the constitutional one. And I left out all other options this time around to make it harder for some to equivocate less than honest stakes now that enough time has passed to form a educated opinion.
Don't be afraid to vote your opinion now. The election is past and our guy won.