Reuters



Imagine that President Obama is visited by aliens who give him the power to kill any human being with his mind. Simply by willing it, he can bring about his or her violent death, as if by a tiny missile. Alternatively, he can kill inconspicuously, so that the target appears to die from an aneurism, a heart attack, a stroke, or any number of other "natural causes" that he can vary as he sees fit. He is limited only insofar as he can kill just one person at a time, which takes roughly two minutes.

The power would expire at the end of his term.

Would that be a good thing?

Predictably, I don't think so. As I've argued for years, it's imprudent to empower a single person to kill in secret on his own unchecked authority. And making it easier to kill makes abuses more likely.

But tens of millions of Americans disagree. The Obama Administration's targeted-killing program is popular, despite the phenomenal power it gives the president, the dearth of meaningful oversight, and the extreme secrecy surrounding it. Even the specific arguments its defenders marshal suggest that they'd be enthusiastic about the scenario I've sketched. Let's dub the hypothetical leader in that scenario Double-O-bama for his alien-issued "license to kill."