Meacham On Drone Kills: Obama Acting Like 'American King'
Barack The First? Wow: who would have thought that perhaps the strongest statement yet in condemnation of President Obama's self-arrogated right to kill Americans abroad would have come from Jon Meacham? Yet on today's Morning Joe, historian Meacham—who knows something about the use and abuse of presidential power—criticized Obama for ignoring the "rule of law" and actually described Obama as acting like "an American king."
Joe Scarborough seconded Meacham's surprising statement, adding that had this come to light under George W. Bush, impeachment would be in the air. View the video after the jump.
Watch Meacham offer his shocking assessment.
JON MEACHAM: You know, the rule of law here, Katty [Kay, of the BBC] and I always joke about how she feels about losing the Colonies.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: She's not happy.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Still mad.
MEACHAM: I don't think she's as grateful as she should be that we've allowed her to come back.
BRZEZINSKI: Exactly.
MEACHAM: This is one of the reasons we broke away from her crowd, was that there were no --
KATTY KAY: I don't see where this is going. I'm struggling with this one, Jon.
MEACHAM: That the rule of law, that the rule of law, could not simply be in the hands of a king and could not be arbitrarily applied. And that's precisely what this is, is in the hands of an American king.
SCARBOROUGH: And an American king that actually gets the list of people who he decides should be killed and who should not be killed. And the New York Times reports that he goes down that list. And there's so many things that are chilling here. I do got to say, Mika, that again, just to follow up on what Mark McKinnon said, this is one of those times where you can't even say if George Bush were doing this. Because if George Bush were doing this, everything that was going on in Washington, D.C. would stop today.
MEACHAM: Yes.
SCARBOROUGH: There would be congressional hearings called. There would be articles of impeachment. All of Washington, all of Manhattan, the entire press corps would stop and focus its attention on this unprecedented overreach, constitutional overreach.
