Obama’s Drone Fantasy

While I'm sure President Obama has fantasies of launching drones on Congress, it's not over his drone policy.

obama-drones-congress

While I’m sure President Obama has fantasies of launching drones on Congress, it’s not over his drone policy–while controversial among wonks, it’s wildly popular.

via Kevin Bin­ver­sie

FILED UNDER: Humor,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. “Did you see anything?!” “No, sir. I did not see you playing with your dolls again.” “Good!”

    Sorry, the picture was the perfect place for a Spaceballs quote.

  2. Mark says:

    Although, is there anything besides politics keeping him from deciding to drone recalcitrant members of congress? Especially if they are on a junket outside of the US?

    As I recall the rhetoric in December involved accusations of terrorism regarding the fiscal cliff negotiations.

  3. Moosebreath says:

    Probably slightly more realistic than Freedom Works’ panda and Hillary fantasy which was leaked in the last 24 hours.

  4. James Joyner says:

    @Mark: I’m not sure “anything besides politics” prevents presidents from doing a lot of truly awful, obviously unconstitutional things. The power of the office is simply enormous and there’s a lot he can do on his own authority that neither Congress nor the courts can do anything about until after the fact.

    That worries the hell out of me at a general level, and it’s why I push for institutionalization of rules. But I’ve actually got very little concern about presidents going rogue and ordering Americans killed willy nilly. They go through a rigorous two year gauntlet before getting the job and ultimately their orders have to get carried out by competent professionals who would surely balk at something that outrageous.

    That’s not to say that enough outrageous things don’t get done regardless.

  5. Franklin says:

    Reading the headline, I assumed this would be similar to the North Korean “We Are The World” dream video. I guess I wasn’t too disappointed.

  6. C. Clavin says:

    If he really wanted to put a Hellfire up the Republican Caucuses collective arse all he would need do is issue an Executive Statement saying he has no intention of putting a Hellfire up their arse.
    The reflexively opposed Republicans, likely led by Mensa Member Ted Cruz, would then immediately go on record saying that he should indeed put a Hellfire up their collective arse…and failing to so immediately is just another indication of the President leading from behind, weakening the security of America,apologizing to our enemies, and taking us down the path to socialism and beyond the thunderdome.
    At which point Obama should justifiably release the Kracken.

  7. Al says:

    @James Joyner:

    The power of the office is simply enormous and there’s a lot he can do on his own authority that neither Congress nor the courts can do anything about until after the fact.

    That assumes that Congress and the courts want to do anything, period. I know that the courts don’t and I’m fairly convinced that Congress doesn’t either.

  8. gVOR08 says:

    @James Joyner:

    They go through a rigorous two year gauntlet before getting the job and ultimately their orders have to get carried out by competent professionals who would surely balk at something that outrageous.

    And yet we got W. Twice.

    I was reading Rachel Maddow’s Drift a couple days ago. (Good information, good read.) She described a drill at Minot AFB in which it took two days, through multiple equipment and procedural failures, to load a B-52 with nuke cruise missiles. Maybe it wasn’t a failure. Maybe they were practicing their response to an order from W to bomb Iran.

    I wonder how hard it would be to get a finding that certain Republican congresspeople are a threat to the security of the United States. There is pretty compelling evidence.