"I Am Shocked, I Tell You, Shocked!"

  No, President Humbug did not actually use those words but they were the essence of his message to the American people yesterday following the publication of Feinstein's farrago.  CBS News, (aka, His Highness's Arse-Lickers in Chief) obviously felt the President's pain:   Mr. Obama said that some of the tactics described in the report "constituted torture in my mind."    [...]   "I think it was important for us to release this so that we can account for it, so that people understand precisely why I banned these practices as one of the first acts I took when I came into office, and hopefully make sure that we don't make those mistakes again," the president said. "I've been very explicit about how our intelligence gathering needs to conduct itself and explicitly prohibited these kinds of techniques. And so anybody who was doing the kinds of things that are described in the report, would not simply be keeping something from me; they would be directly violating the orders that I've issued as president, commander in chief."   However, what President Snow White failed to mention because no-one asked him - why am I not surprised? - is what murdering US citizens by means of drone strikes 'constitutes in his mind?'  So far, four American citizens have been killed by such strikes, orders for which must have been cleared by the President.   So, according to what passes for thinking in the empty spaces between Obama's ears, if you get hold of a terrorist and slap him around a bit, and keep him cold, tired, wet and hungry you are "a very naughty boy", but if you order someone to press a button and then sit in an ops room in the basement of the White House with all your generals and watch as a missile takes out a dwelling in a foreign land several tens of thousands of miles away, a dwelling which may or may not contain totally innocent men, women and children - to say nothing of the American citizen you are executing without benefit of trial - then you are a hero!   Quick, someone pass the sick bag!