Comedy Central host Jon Stewart is no fan of President Barack Obama’s drone policies, he proved Wednesday night, as the funny man slammed the administration, led by “Barry Bombs,” for being the “all-time leader in outside the battlefield sky killings.”
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Stewart wasted little time before launching into his criticism of the president’s drone program, which includes targeted killings of terrorists — including several American citizens — far beyond the boundaries of the traditional battlefield.
“That is right,” he said Wednesday on “The Daily Show.” “President Barack Obama is our country’s all-time leader in outside battlefield sky killings. … He’s like Barry Bombs of drone strokes.”
But the president’s drone program is not without its limitations, Stewart said, as the Obama administration has spoken out against the targeted killings of American citizens as it is against the United States Constitution.
President Obama first made that assumption in May, but just last week, officials within the Obama administration confirmed the White House was attempting to explore ways to legally launch drone strikes against American citizens working with al Qaeda.
“So that’s our dilemma,” Stewart said sarcastically. “It’s not constitutional to kill an American without due process, but there’s this American that we’d really like to kill.”
The Comedy Central funny man, in discussing the government’s abilities to skirt the Constitution, went so far as to draw comparisons between Obama’s drone program and President George W. Bush’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques.
“But the Obama administration won’t say, ‘Well, we’re not doing a targeted assassination of an American without due process.’ When they could as easily say we’re conducting an aerial citizen reduction program,” Stewart said. “But they won’t do that because they consider themselves above that kind of simplistic chicanery. But they will get there. They will kill that dude.”
“The Daily Show” host referenced a speech given by President Barack Obama in May 2013 that set the threshold for launching a drone attack at “near certainty” that no civilians will be killed. Since then, the United Staes has launched 12 drone strikes in Yemen with four civilian casualties, defining “near certainty” at 33 percent, Stewart said.
“It is certainty if we’re taking certainty pass/fail,” he chided.
Stewart went on to mock the president’s halfhearted attempts to ask Congress to provide oversight on the drone program. When Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) tried to hold hearings on Obama’s drone policy last week, for example, the White House forbade CIA officials to attend and failed to grant security clearances to the Senate Armed Services Committee to receive a briefing on drones.
“Because apparently the first step in getting help is making sure no one shows up to the intervention,” Stewart said in closing.
Check out the clips of Stewart slamming Obama’s drone program below, courtesy of Comedy Central.
