DN Editorial: We have to criticize Obama's 'kill order' on al-Awlaki

DICK CHENEY emerged over the weekend from wherever it is he hides from war- crimes prosecutors to go on CNN, where he demanded an apology from President Obama.

Obama, Cheney said, had wrongly criticized the Bush administration for riding roughshod over the Constitution in its pursuit of the war on terror. When the time came to order a hit against Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric ( and American citizen), Obama took "robust action" that doesn't look all that different from President Bush's policies.

We can't believe we are writing this, but the former vice president has a bit of a point.

Bush and Cheney insisted that the "war on terror," which began on 9/11 but has no end, justifies indefinite detention without due process, of anyone the president said was an "enemy combatant."

But in ordering the successful assassination - uh, "targeted killing" - of al-Awlaki in a drone strike in Yemen on Friday (in which another American, Samir Kahn, also was killed), Obama has asserted powers beyond anything Bush claimed for himself.

The Obama administration argues that, if the country is "at war," the president can order an alleged terrorist killed even though he's nowhere near a battlefield in a country with which the United States is not in armed conflict. On the president's say-so, an American citizen can be ordered executed without a trial - or even an indictment. (Following this argument to its chilling conclusion, if al-Awlaki had sneaked back into the United States to visit Las Cruces, N.M., his hometown, there apparently is no bright legal line to prevent a drone strike on Interstate 25.)

Being president in a time of war means never having to explain. Last year, al-Awlaki's father unsuccesfully attempted to challenge the president's assassination order. The Department of Justice argued that the decision was a "state secret" and that therefore the court had no jurisdiction to rule on it.

The White House has asserted that it has all kinds of evidence to show that al-Awlaki went beyond his Internet jihad - which likely did incite several people like the Fort Hood shooter and the Christmas Day bomber - to take on an "operational role" in al Qaeda. But that evidence also is secret. Trust us, says the White House, just like you trusted Bush about those WMDs.

We are shedding no tears for Anwar al-Awlaki or the abrupt ending to his fiery sermons. Samir Kahn - a self-described "traitor to America" and proud of it - also will not be missed.

But we are grieving the spectacle of so many Americans who would have condemned this action if it had been taken by Bush - or a future President Perry - who are rushing to justify it. (We mean you, Sen. Casey).

And we are mourning the loss of American ideals that these "hits" represent.