President Barack Obama told his staff that he’s “really good at killing people,” according to a new book set to hit shelves Tuesday.This is a disturbing revelation, all the moreso since Halperin and Heilemann are both Obama supporters who would not be expected to be trying to make the President look bad.
The book, titled “Double Down” and authored by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, reportedly says the Nobel Peace Prize winning president made the comments while discussing drone strikes with his aides.
In time of war most of us certainly do want our leaders to be resolute in taking the fight to the enemy, but it's alarming that a president would actually boast about killing people, especially when, as with Mr. Obama's drone strikes, those whose bodies are blown apart are sometimes women and children.
I don't know the manner in which Mr. Obama said this, or if in fact he even did say it, but I hope that if he did, it was with a sense of deep remorse and not a spirit of gloating. Killing terrorists may be necessary, but it should never be something about which we should brag. To do so erodes our humanity, hardens our hearts, and reduces us to the level of savages. If President Obama was indeed gloating, and he may not have been, what would that say about the man that rather than be filled with deep anguish at being responsible for the deaths of children and other innocent bystanders he would actually find their deaths something to brag about?
Let's hope that our President uttered those words with regret, pain, and irony and not as though he had just birdied a par three on a golf outing.