Mountain Top

Feasibility
Obama administration lawyers have asserted that it would be lawful to kill a United States citizen if “an informed, high-level official” of the government decided that the target was a ranking figure in Al Qaeda who posed “an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States” and if his capture was not feasible, according to a 16-page document made public on Monday.
...
Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, called the paper “a profoundly disturbing document,” and said: “It’s hard to believe that it was produced in a democracy built on a system of checks and balances. It summarizes in cold legal terms a stunning overreach of executive authority — the claimed power to declare Americans a threat and kill them far from a recognized battlefield and without any judicial involvement.” (NYT, 2/5/2013)

Here's a tip from RedStateVT if you are not certain what position to take on an issue. First, find out what the ACLU thinks. Next, take the opposite position. 

One of those rare occasions where RedStateVT and Obama are aligned. It is a dangerous world. We have to kill the bad guys before they kill us. 


With Friends Like This
President Obama will visit Israel this spring, his first trip to the country since the start of his presidency, White House officials said Tuesday. (NYT, 2/5/2013)

More than four years later Obama finally gets around to visiting one of America's most stalwart allies. He probably didn't want to get the Palestinians upset.


Big Stuff
This is big. And former senior government lawyers I spoke with recently explained why it could get a whole lot bigger:

The leaks clearly came from someone in the president’s inner circle. As The Post explains, “Knowledge of the virus was likely to have been highly compartmentalized and limited to a small set of Americans and Israelis.” Moreover, whoever leaked the information was present when the president discussed this covert action program in the Situation Room. There is a tiny universe of individuals who could have shared the details of President Obama’s personal deliberations on the covert program with the press. (Marc Thiessen, Washington Post, 2/4/2013)

Here is how RedStateVT predicts the White House intelligence leaks scandal will play out. Team Obama will designate someone to be the fall guy. Mr. Fall Guy will be a White House official who was planning to leave his post anyway after the first term. Mr. Fall Guy will be out of town for several months on a long-planned family vacation. Then he will bump his head and be hospitalized for several months. Then in the late summer, Jay Carney - responding to a question from a Fox News reporter - will declare that this is old news and the Obama administration really has nothing new to disclose on the matter. Next!