YET FOLKS ARE SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE HE WON'T USE NUKES IF IT'S CONVENIENT FOR US?:

Obama – the idealist turns assassin: The US president has approved the targeted killing of a fellow American. So what has changed the principled politician? (Joan Smith, 11 April 2010, Independent)

Back in the old days, when Barack Obama was one of the hopefuls trying to get his party's presidential nomination, he was asked a specific question: does the American constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charge as unlawful enemy combatants? The would-be candidate's response was unequivocal, rejecting the idea that there was any such power. No wonder, then, that so many people were startled when it emerged last week that the Obama administration has authorised not only the detention but the "targeted killing" of an American citizen, the extremist Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

For decades, the CIA was suspected of covertly plotting political assassinations, but the practice was believed to have been banned by President Gerald Ford. Under the Bush administration, such an admission would have caused more outrage than astonishment, but isn't Obama supposed to be more principled than his predecessor?