This is going to be a more than occasional series on the blog from now until whenever the administration leaves office. So this is the first entry. We can help President Obama today by explaining as LOUDLY as we can that he shouldn't lead this country so far into the quagmire of extrajudicial killing that it never finds its way out again.

Attorney General Eric Holder's appearance at Northwestern on Monday, during which he explained the exact circumstances under which the president can order the killing of just about anyone the president wants to kill, was not promising. The criteria for when a president can unilaterally decide to kill somebody is completely full of holes, regardless of what the government's pet lawyers say. And this...

"This is an indicator of our times," Holder said, "not a departure from our laws and our values."

...is a monumental pile of crap that should embarrass every Democrat who ever said an unkind word about John Yoo. This policy is a vast departure from our laws and an interplanetary probe away from our values. The president should not have this power because the Constitution, which was written by smarter people than, say, Benjamin Wittes, knew full and goddamn well why the president shouldn't have this power. If you give the president the power to kill without due process, or without demonstrable probable cause, he inevitably will do so. And, as a lot of us asked during the Bush years, if you give this power to President George Bush, will you also give it to President Hillary Clinton and, if you give this power to President Barack Obama, will you also give it to President Rick Santorum? To continue:

"'Due process' and 'judicial process' are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security." Holder said. "The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process."

Well, I'm reasssured.

And who will allegedly "restrain" the president in the exercise of this incredible usurpation of executive power? A bunch of unelected Cabinet officers? Some wise men brought over from Congress? This would be the same Congress that has fought so very hard to maintain its constitutionally delegated war powers over the past 60 years? I don't mean to get all Ron Paul with you here, but he's right about one thing: The Congress has an undeniable and irrevocable constitutional mandate over the war powers of the government, and that mandate is exactly the same in 2012 as it was in 1789, and as it was in 1941, which was the last time the Executive branch condescended to ask for a constitutionally proper declaration of war. Why we should believe that a Congress that has so thoroughly abdicated that profound constitutional obligation ever would, through the delegation of authority to a few of its members, enforce it against an Executive branch thoroughly set on killing someone is not for small minds to ponder. And why would the Executive ever bother to listen anyway? No Congress is ever going to impeach a president over the improper use of military force; in 1972, Congressman Robert Drinan, S.J. tried to do that to Richard Nixon over the blatantly impeachable offense of bombing Cambodia in secret, only to have the sainted Tip O'Neill squash the whole business until they could do it properly over a conspiracy to cover up a cheap-ass burglary. This ingrained cowardice was why the Congress of the time did not assert its constitutional authority and impeach Ronald Reagan over the crimes of Iran-Contra, wherein the administration made war unconstitutionally in Central America. Oh, but don't get the Congress started about blowjobs because, wow, will they get all noble then.

You want some help, Mr. President? Keep the country from sinking further into this lawless abyss.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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