President Bush's Third Term Turning Out Worse than Feared

Glenn Greenwald hits the nail on the head concerning President (and Nobel Peace Prize winner) Obama's chilling decision to authorize the assassination of an American citizen without due process of any kind. Greenwald's plenty good at what he does, so I'll just parse out the best bits:

Today, both The New York Times and The Washington Post confirm that the Obama White House has now expressly authorized the CIA to kill [American-born Islamic cleric Anwar] al-Alwaki no matter where he is found, no matter his distance from a battlefield.
...
No due process is accorded. No charges or trials are necessary. No evidence is offered, nor any opportunity for him to deny these accusations (which he has done vehemently through his family). None of that.

Instead, in Barack Obama's America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens -- and a death penalty imposed -- is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone's guilt as a Terrorist. He then dispatches his aides to run to America's newspapers -- cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they're granted -- to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist. It is simply asserted that Awlaki has converted from a cleric who expresses anti-American views and advocates attacks on American military targets (advocacy which happens to be Constitutionally protected) to Actual Terrorist "involved in plots." These newspapers then print this Executive Verdict with no questioning, no opposition, no investigation, no refutation as to its truth. And the punishment is thus decreed: this American citizen will now be murdered by the CIA because Barack Obama has ordered that it be done. What kind of person could possibly justify this or think that this is a legitimate government power?

As Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit would say: "Remember when they told us if we voted for John McCain, we'd get Orwellian tactics and an increased police state? Turns out they were right."

And just for the record, here's candidate Obama in 2007 proving once again that he has never even played a game of cards or shared a cab with President Obama:

[Boston Globe]: Does the Constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants?

[Obama]: No. I reject the Bush Administration's claim that the President has plenary authority under the Constitution to detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.

I suppose the quandary surrounding the detention of citizens is moot if you grant yourself the authority to simply assassinate them instead.