White House spokesman Jay Carney today defended the Obama Administration’s policy of drone assassinations in a press conference, while dodging specific questions about the Justice Department memo which lays out the ever-broadening standard for those killings.

Carney insisted that President Obama takes killing people seriously, and that all killings are done with “utmost care,” adding that it is his belief that such killings are “legal, they are ethical, and they are wise.”

Carney would only cite authorization from Congress for general War on Terror operations as a justification for the killings, insisting repeatedly that they “save American lives,” in spite of the memo saying such killings were sometimes carried out when there was no evidence of a specific plot in the works.

The Obama Administration has repeatedly defended overseas killings in general on nebulous grounds of “self defense,” while insisting that any comments on any specific killings were impossible because of “national security.”