Drones have replaced Guantánamo as the recruiting tool of choice for militants; in his 2010 guilty plea, Faisal Shahzad, who had tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square, justified targeting civilians by telling the judge, “When the drones hit, they don’t see children.”

 

[…]

William M. Daley, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff in 2011, said the president and his advisers understood that they could not keep adding new names to a kill list, from ever lower on the Qaeda totem pole. What remains unanswered is how much killing will be enough

 

“One guy gets knocked off, and the guy’s driver, who’s No. 21, becomes 20?” Mr. Daley said, describing the internal discussion. “At what point are you just filling the bucket with numbers?”

When Obama made his announcement about gay (marriage), I flashed back to (Lyndon B.) Johnson four days after President Kennedy is assassinated. He has to give his first speech to Congress and his advisers are sitting around and saying ‘Don’t mention civil rights. Don’t use up your political capital on civil rights. It’s a great cause, but it’s a lost cause.’ You know what Johnson says? ‘What’s a presidency for, then?’ And he says, in his speech, ‘The first thing we have to do is pass the Civil Rights bill.’

I think same sex couples should be able to get married.