Bush and Obama have set us back 800 years.

NBC News reports:

Legal experts expressed grave reservations Tuesday about an Obama administration memo concluding that the United States can order the killing of American citizens believed to be affiliated with al-Qaida – with one saying the White House was acting as "judge, jury, and executioner."

"Anyone should be concerned when the president and his lawyers make up their own interpretation of the law or their own rules," said Mary Ellen O'Connell, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame and an authority on international law and the use of force.

"This is a very, very dangerous thing that the president has done," she added...

Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer who writes about security and liberty for the British newspaper The Guardian, described the memo as "fundamentally misleading," with a clinical tone that disguises "the radical and dangerous power it purports to authorize."

"If you believe the president has the power to order U.S. citizens executed far from any battlefield with no charges or trial, then it's truly hard to conceive of any asserted power you would find objectionable..."

[link to www.washingtonsblog.com]