Malkin next points out that Democrats and the major press always fails to bring up Obama's exercise of "unitary executive power" such as "kill lists" and "war time" detentions. Within five seconds, Hannity pulls the plug on the segment in an apparent panic.
In this audio above, you can hear two diametrically opposed pundits reach total agreement live on the air that the President could be impeached for war crimes. A topical, substantive discussion in the public interest, abruptly aborted by the show's host. Why? Because Hannity painted himself into a corner, supporting the same policies for a decade as he shook pom-poms for Bush and Cheney. Instead of the Stop Obama Express, it was trainwreck radio helmed by the greatest war shill in big media.
*Update: In the few days since we posted this article, Sean Hannity has done a total 180 on his decision not to cover Obama's drone policy for years.
This flip-flop by Hannity was precipitated by a DOJ policy outline which was leaked to NBC News, but Hannity is using this as a thinly veiled excuse. Real journalists have known about this policy and reported on it regularly since it began under Bush who killed a US citizen in 2002.
Hannity has become so desperate to lift sagging ratings and talk up possible impeachment of Obama, he has taken an awkward and hypocritical turn, joining the large body of liberals who denounced the policy when it was first discovered.
Subsequently, an anti-American backlash grew in Pakistan and Afghanistan as Obama's overuse of drone strikes ended up in large numbers of collateral casualties of innocent bystanders, retroactively labeled as 'combatants' by the military to paper over the damage.
But focusing only on the drone assassinations of US citizens, and the post-9/11 erosion of due process, Hannity conveniently leaves out the main incident that triggered this controversy, the killing of US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki who the government says inspired both the Underwear Bomber Farouk Muttalab and Ft. Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan.
We have not seen any evidence showing Awlaki had a hand in plotting those particular events, but his repeated calls for anti-American jihad and confirmed communications with Hasan and Muttalab qualified Awlaki for a "signature strike" in which the executive unilaterally decides which aspects of a case are sufficient to order a kill.
The separate drone strike of Awlaki's 16 year old son, born and raised in Michigan, is an even more troubling violation of the 6th Amendment right to jury trial.
In order to argue this correctly, Hannity will have to admit that US citizens who plot terrorist acts should still be afforded full Constitutional due process, which strikes a dagger in the heart of the "War on Terror" policies of detention, rendition, watch lists, surveillance and the whole ball of wax.
We should be glad that the right has at long last come around to question Obama's kill list, but it's quite clear they are only doing so because they lost the election. They must now reconcile this stunning hypocrisy with the rest of the Constitutional violations they still wholeheartedly embrace, along with their sycophantic followers that forget Obama inherited this "dictatorship".
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