Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on passage of the Military Commissions Act Of 2006 (10-18-2006) is an eloquent, direct explanation of the reasons every American should care about drone strikes, "enemy combatants," due process, and the responsibility of our elected leaders to uphold their oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution."
President Obama has been quoted as wanting to be a "transformative" president. There's still time to pull it off, but George W. Bush has made that ambition a heavy-duty lift--one that the president has yet to approach. The essential question the president must answer is: Will he or will he not act to restore the rule of law in America?
It's the most important issue we have on our plate as a nation. Someone's going to have to start a fight about it and it might as well be him. Otherwise, the rot's just going to get deeper and deeper until something breaks. There isn't just a "cancer on the presidency" this time--it's on democracy as we've practiced it for some 237 years.
Can the president have you killed?
Yes, he can--for about twelve years now.
That is not right.
That is something dreamed up by a guy who paints portraits of his feet being carried out by a man with a Nobel Peace Prize.
It's time to stop.