Obama’s top Terrorism adviser John Brennan recently suggested that there could be “dozens” of Americans who have been targeted for assassination, and  Glenn Greenwald appeared on the Dylan Ratigan show today to discuss the implications.

Ratigan asked Glenn Greenwald if Obama’s actions create “a massive cognitive dissonance that actually allows him to get away with more than George W. Bush could when it comes to encroachment on civil liberties,” whether it was  “facilitating theft from the American people, or potentially calling you or me a terrorist and trying to have us killed”:

GREENWALD:  I know that that’s the fact.  The Republicans are at least being consistent.  When Bush was president, they said “we think the President should be able to have whatever powers he wants in an unchecked fashion as long as it’s justified by terrorism and war.   The Democrats, though, said that they were against those things,  that the President shouldn’t have powers to exercise in an unchecked fashion.  And again, if you look at what Democrats including Barack Obama objected to, it was merely things like eavesdropping on Americans and detaining them without due process and without charges.  And now Democrats have completely abandoned those objections now that there is a Democrat in the White House. And apparently not just detaining and eavesdropping on Americans, but targeting them for murder is acceptable to the Democratic party now that there is a Democrat in the White House.

And again, if you justify that — targeting American citizens for assassination without any due process – what don’t you approve of?

That is a very good question.