I think President Obama is to be congratulated for the adjustments to his positions on NAFTA, and likewise on FISA, Iraq, rendition, Gitmo (now that it has suddenly and mysteriously met the Geneva standard), the Patriot Act, etc. These changes of heart enhance U.S. security, I think, and the President is to be commended for supporting them.

But that said, I’m not sure. Since war has become a matter of federal jurisprudence, how is expanding a program in Pakistan to identify, target, and kill terrorist suspects from the air more constitutional than arresting them on the ground, keeping them alive, and, to take one Bush/Hitler example, transporting them back to Gitmo? Perhaps one is judge and jury in both cases, but not executioner in the latter?

Myself? Were I worried about about fairness for an out-of-uniform terrorist bent on killing Westerners and destroying nascent constitutional government in the region, I’d prefer he be caught and renditioned to Egypt on his way to Gitmo, rather than suddenly being splattered over his mud-brick living-room wall one evening.