Who Can Obama Kill?

Jonah Goldberg, who is maturing into a fine thinker and writer, has a nice piece here on the subject of Obama's assassination list. One of the figures targeted for liquidation is Anwar al-Alwaki, a US citizen. This is a tricky subject -- whether or not presidents can, during wartime and with the implied consent of congress, target American citizens for assassination without judicial oversight as Obama has. Goldberg lays out the arguments for and against Obama's assassination order. He comes to no firm conclusion, but his final point is important -- in our current situation [and that which promises to obtain in the foreseeable future] we cannot continue to think in traditional terms about how executive power can be implemented. There has to be a national debate to define just what a president can and cannot do, and that debate cannot be bound by partisan enthusiasms. It's an interesting article on an important subject. Read it.