Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., while carrying out a filibuster to denounce the drone strike program, accused President Obama of abandoning the principles of presidential restraint that he articulated as a senator.
“Barack Obama, in 2007, would be down here with me arguing against this,” Paul said on the Senate floor. “It amazes me and disappoints me how much he’s changed.”
Paul recalled that Obama has contradicted himself by committing the U.S. military to combat in Libya without congressional approval and authorizing the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects, which he opposed when George W. Bush implemented the policy.
The filibuster is a response to a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder. “It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,” Holder wrote to him on Monday.
“To be bombed in your sleep?” Paul replied today. “There’s nothing American about that.”
