Jonathan Turley is a professor
of law at George
Washington University and a frequent guest on Keith Olbermann’s
“Countdown” show when it was on MSNBC. He was usually brought on to help show
how bad former President George W. Bush was when it came to civil liberties.
Mr. Turley now has his sights
on President Barack Obama for his disregard for those same liberties.
“While many are reluctant to admit it,
Obama has proved a disaster, not just for
specific civil liberties, but the civil
liberties cause in the United States,” Turley wrote in an Op/Ed piece published
in the Los Angeles Times last week.
Those who think beyond the false dichotomy
of the left/right spectrum have realized for years that Democrats on the
national level have been as hypocritical on peace and civil liberties issues as
national Republicans have been on small government and fiscal responsibility.
Both sides have talked their talk, but have not followed up with the
appropriate walk.
According to Turley, “Civil libertarians
have long had a dysfunctional relationship with the Democratic
Party, which treats them as a captive voting bloc with nowhere else
to turn in elections. Not even this history, however, prepared civil
libertarians for Obama.”
The professor states, accurately, that
President Obama has continued the Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has
failed to honor a campaign promise to close the prison at Guantanamo.
Warrantless searches have been expanded and military tribunals are still going
on, Turley notes.
Overseas militarism has increased under
the current administration. In addition to Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. has
troops in Yemen and is building a base for drones in Ethiopia. The president
ordered the bombing of Libya without even consulting Congress, let alone
getting congressional authorization. This last has caused one member of the
president’s own party, Dennis Kucinich, a congressman from Ohio, to call for
Mr. Obama’s impeachment.
Mr. Obama has taken it upon himself to
order the execution of American citizens. That order, the killing of Muslim
cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, was carried out late last week — after the Turley Op/Ed
piece was published — with a drone strike in Yemen.
He was a U.S. citizen who was denied the
due process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. The president made himself
judge, jury and executioner in violation of U.S. and international law. He
ordered a man killed based solely on secret evidence, evidence that can only be
alleged since the administration won’t reveal it to a court.
Barack Obama acted as if he were a king
who can murder on whim, not a president bound by law and oath of office.
Perhaps he believes, as former President Richard Nixon did, that a president’s
action couldn’t be considered illegal. Mr. Nixon was wrong and so is Mr. Obama.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney approves
of the killing. No surprise there, but should Democrats take pleasure in that?
Who among them has come out against this illegal execution? The only
politicians to speak out against the murder so far are Republicans Herman Cain,
Gary Johnson and Ron Paul.
To quote Mr. Turley again: “In time, the
election of Barack Obama may stand as one of the single most devastating events
in our history for civil liberties.”
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