Roy Edroso at the Voice: There was an outcry from the big-name liberals you’d expect: Jon Stewart (“We told you we were going to be transparent — we just didn’t tell you it was going to be about the last guy’s secrets”), Bill Moyers (“killing innocents and driving their enraged families and friends straight into the arms of the very terrorists we’re trying to eradicate”), Eugene Robinson (“Obama’s drone attacks are just wrong”), Mother Jones (“The government needs the approval of a judge to detain a suspected terrorist. To kill one, it need only give itself permission”), The American Prospect (“this definition of ‘imminent threat’ is disturbingly similar to the contortions of logic that the Bush administration used”), Roger Ebert (“With all due respect, Mr. President, that’s bullshit”), Tom Tomorrow, Bill Maher (“I know Obama’s a swell guy and Bush was an evil oaf, but it really is the same policy, isn’t it?”), etc., not to mention tons of leftbloggers. We should add that some of them were talking about drones before it was cool.
But there were some liberals who on-the-other-handed the revelations: msnbc’s Touré (“as soon as you join Al Qaeda, you become an imminent threat”) and Krystal Ball (“Do you feel the same about George W. Bush having that power as President Obama? Call me a hypocrite but I sure don’t”), for example. Also McLaughlin Group stalwart Eleanor Clift, who called drones a “blessing,” and Michael Tomasky, who said, well, at least Obama wants to put in a review process and isn’t George Bush.
–excerpted from Roy Edroso at villagevoice.com
