Throughout the more than 12 hours of being called out, the president was silent. Well, he probably wasn’t exactly silent. He was likely laughing it up at the “secretive dinner date with a group of Republican senators” he was holding over at the Jefferson Hotel across town.
#StandwithRand. For a short time Wednesday night, that was the most popular trending hashtag on Twitter. And for good reason.
At 10:39 p.m. (EST), Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) ended his epic almost-13-hour filibuster of the nomination of John Brennan as head of the CIA.
Tag-teaming with more than a dozen of his colleagues, including Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Paul delivered body blow after body blow to the case made recently by President Obama that he has the authority — “in extraordinary circumstance” — to order a deadly drone strike to kill Americans on American soil.
During his speech, Paul called that response “frightening.” And he said, “When I asked the president, can you kill an American on American soil, it should have been an easy answer. It’s an easy question. It should have been a resounding, an unequivocal, ‘No.’ The president’s response? He hasn’t killed anyone yet. We’re supposed to be comforted by that.”
At 4:45 p.m., Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had had enough of these tough questions. He rose to ask Senator Paul when he would be ending his filibuster and allow a vote.
He said he’d be happy to sit down if “if the president or the attorney general will clarify that they will not kill Americans on American soil.”
[…]
