I am watching the reaction to the unintended drone killing of civilian hostages American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto and sensing a sea change. The kind that rocks Washington in inscrutable ways, the kind that puts an end to the he said/she said back and forth, the kind that unites both sides—all sides—in asking the tough questions that go beyond what went wrong and focus on what we are doing.

The two American al-Qaeda members killed in counterterrorism operations acknowledged by the White House this morning, Adam Gadahn and Ahmed Farouq, were the fifth and sixth Americans killed in drone strikes. Both were killed in January, according to information released so far, in two separate operations. The White House says that it “declassified” the operations and deaths because Obama felt the American people deserved to know about them, but one source familiar with the way the story played out tells me that reporters had been nosing around about American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto, two hostages who were also killed by our drones.