Via Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber, here are some harsh words from ‘right-leaning’ journalist Conor Friedersdorf.
Obama has done things that, while not comparable to a historic evil like chattel slavery, go far beyond my moral comfort zone. ….
Obama terrorizes innocent Pakistanis on an almost daily basis. The drone war he is waging in North Waziristan isn’t “precise” or “surgical” as he would have Americans believe. It kills hundreds of innocents, including children. And for thousands of more innocents who live in the targeted communities, the drone war makes their lives into a nightmare worthy of dystopian novels. …. At worst, this policy creates more terrorists than it kills; at best, America is ruining the lives of thousands of innocent people and killing hundreds of innocents for a small increase in safety from terrorists. ….
Obama established one of the most reckless precedents imaginable: that any president can secretly order and oversee the extrajudicial killing of American citizens. Obama’s kill list transgresses against the Constitution as egregiously as anything George W. Bush ever did. It is as radical an invocation of executive power as anything Dick Cheney championed. The fact that the Democrats rebelled against those men before enthusiastically supporting Obama is hackery every bit as blatant and shameful as anything any talk radio host has done.
Conor Friedersdorf, “Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama“, The Atlantic, 26 September 2012.
George Washington University political scientist Henry Farrell writes “On key foreign policy and human rights issues, Obama hasn’t been a disappointment. He’s been a disaster.”. I agree. For more, see “Is It Moral for Lefties to Vote for Obama?“.
It is a shame that the Republicans were unable to field a decent alternative to Obama.
