"My point is that nothing like the NSC process should ever be used again to kill an American. If another citizen is ever targeted, it should only be after an extensive debate in Congress, leading to the statutory creation of a serious legal procedure designed to eliminate the obvious abuses revealed in the Awlaki case. Because ultimately, isn't preserving American democracy what this is all about?"

Should any American citizen be surprised by this weak questioning of Presidential abuse of power, enunciated by an establishmentarian thinker fully recognizing the parameters of the American Imperial delusion, as it's central conceit? This essay seems promising until the reader reaches the last revelatory paragraph quoted above. The crisis of the Republic has reached its ignominious end: the putative guardians of the Republic have betrayed it with impunity, in the name of a benighted realpolitik precipitated by a crisis. And the political power that fear can make present in a populous, enhancing the argument that surrender of freedom is the path to the elusive notion of security.
Publius