Jay Carney, the chief spokesman for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Winner, wants you to know that President Barack Obama’s controversial use of drones isn’t just sort-of borderline defensible. …

How much care does the White House take in assessing who it wants to bomb (often in countries with which the U.S. is not officially at war)? So much care that it doesn’t feel a need to get legal authorization from either the judicial or legislative branches of the federal government. …

What else is in the news today regarding the most transparent administration in history? A report documenting that 54 countries around the globe have played along with the CIA when it comes to torturing suspects in such a way that the U.S. can pretend it doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore.

There is a darkly comic aspect to this, I suppose: Here’s a president who once taught classes in constitutional law and swore up and down that America doesn’t torture, that he was against “dumb wars” waged by his predecessors, that he was more transparent than a glass of triple-filtered water, and who won a goddamned Nobel Peace Prize! And he turns out to be not just a little iffy when it comes to being constrained in his willingness to break all sorts of rules but downright godawful.