I Just Shake My Head

Trey Smith

A poll conducted by the Washington Post/ABC News leaves me greatly disheartened. The vast majority of Americans -- including self-defined liberals -- approve of the use of drones to murder people, even Americans. This mentality, that anyone who poses a nebulous threat to our "national security" is fair game, has become pervasive in the American psyche. If we "accidentally" kill or maim a handful or hundreds of innocents, it is no cause for concern. The price supposedly is worth it!!

I certainly am not surprised that conservatives support these sorts of policies. They consistently view the world through the us vs. them lens. But as Glenn Greenwald wrote on Wednesday, it is mind-boggling that Democrats -- who vehemently denounced the Bush administration for similar sins -- now applaud and rally around a Democratic president whose sins are as heinous and worse.

Indeed: is there even a single liberal pundit, blogger or commentator who would have defended George Bush and Dick Cheney if they (rather than Obama) had been secretly targeting American citizens for execution without due process, or slaughtering children, rescuers and funeral attendees with drones, or continuing indefinite detention even a full decade after 9/11? Please. How any of these people can even look in the mirror, behold the oozing, limitless intellectual dishonesty, and not want to smash what they see is truly mystifying to me.

As I have written in this space before, I am so sick and tired of partisan loyalty that is devoid of modicum of principles. If a person's foundational beliefs only go as deep as who happens to sit in the White House at any given moment, then said beliefs lack any kind of root structure.

Put another way, if it's wrong for your adversaries to do this or that, it should be wrong for your side or YOU to do this or that. If not, then you have no right to criticize others and you should keep your pie hole shut!