EDITORIAL

What if Bob just wants to be a gardener?

David A. Lombardo

You have to give The Messiah credit where credit is due. Other presidents have suffered silently over having their hands tied by that nasty, old, out of date Constitution.

Finally we have a president who is smarter than those of us who live in flyover country. Small minded paranoids who clutch their bibles and their guns with such poor reading comprehension they think the Constitution was written to protect their rights and limit the power of the government.

Intelligent guys understand it's nothing more than a living document designed by a bunch of rich, old white guys that has to be put in context to be understood. The context apparently being that once you elect a Messiah it's okay to use it as toilet paper.

More to the point, it's okay to just issue executive orders for small, inconsequential things such as assassinating American citizens.

Personally, I think The Messiah must have eaten bad sushi to come up with the logic that concludes waterboarding a terrorist is wrong but shooting an American citizen, from the sky no less, is okay. Admittedly, I can see how it does meet the broad sense of the concept of due process. I mean, you know, the guy at Creech Air Force Base flying the unmanned drone over Afghanistan does have to get the thumbs up before shooting the American citizen 30,000 feet below.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for revoking the birth certificate of any terrorist whether his name is Abdul or Bob, but am I the only one that thinks maybe Bob's U.S. passport might give him a bit of a leg up in the, "Bob, what the hell are you doing department" prior to lighting him up?

What if Bob is some dumb American in the wrong place at the wrong time and the 26 year old kid eating a twinky at Creech Air Force Base has OD'ed on sugar and misinterprets what he sees through a camera a quarter of the world away and 30,000 feet above Bob. Seriously, shouldn't we have a chat with Bob before we liquefy him with a spent uranium round?

What if Bob is there for reasons Obama believes are acceptable. Stuff like he's there to find work in the lawn care industry or maybe just start a local chapter of the Latin Kings or Gangster Disciples. I mean we'd let Bob sneak into the U.S. to do it and give him free benefits and health care to boot.

Now I know the White House is saying we're only flying drones and doing this in Afghanistan and then only to "American citizens if they are believed to be "senior operational leaders" of al-Qaida or "an associated force" -- even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S." And I thought Obama and Eric Holder couldn't in their wildest imaginations come up with something more stupid than Operation Fast and Furious; it's good to know I'm fallible.

Now I might have potentially been able to fall asleep at night thinking about this as long as I'd taken a shower to get the stink of it off me. Almost, except for a couple of side notes.

Why it is the Federal government is putting in place the ability to fly unmanned drones over the U.S? Then there are the half million coffins that FEMA has purchased. That's going to require more than four horsemen of the apocalypse to fill those babies.

Then there's the small issue that over the past 10 months the Department of Homeland Security has purchased 1.625 billion rounds of small arms ammunition; the largest order for ammo the Federal government has ever made. Are you listening to this? 1.625 billion rounds of small arms ammo. U.S. soldiers used 5.5 million rounds of ammo a month in Iraq. If you do the math, DHS can wage a full scale war for almost 30 years.

And finally, my personal favorite, DHS chief Napolitano has put out a request for a bid on 7,000 5.56x45mm NATO personal defense weapons also known as assault weapons when owned by civilians. We know they're bad and not practical for personal defense yet right in the request for a bid DHS specifically refers to them as personal protection weapons for its agents. Oh yeah, she also wants them to have 30 round mags. Lovely. Tell me again, Mr. President, how we gun nuts are paranoid. And here's a thought, just because we're paranoid doesn't mean you're not really after us.