Just got this bulletin on my phone from AP:
Republicans nominate Mitt Romney for president.
No, really. They interrupted my day to tell me that. I guess if you’re still out there in the MSM, and you’ve been forced by your cautious editors to type “presumptive” several hundred times in the last few months, this is a big moment.
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And perennial loser Ron Paul can stick a fork in this years campaign.
It’s kind of like “alleged,” isn’t it?
Meanwhile, we’ve just had a week or so where former military (in the form of ex-SEALS) made a pretty strong direct political challenge and accusations against their commander-in-chief via TV ad; a law enforcement official in Texas spoke quite openly and almost enthusiastically about organizing militia against an imagined “assault” led by the President; and now four US Army soldiers are under arrest for a plot to commit terrorist acts against the government and to assassinate the President.
We can expect a lot more of this, especially if Obama wins in November.
I never started saying it.
@Phillip – that’s because people are starting to wise up and realize he’s bad for this country. The only one who’s happy about all this is Jimmy Carter who may be replaced as the worst president this country’s ever had.
@Phillip
A new book by a member of the Seal 6 team that killed Bin Laden apparently does not give Obama much credit either.
http://news.yahoo.com/seal-book-raises-questions-bin-ladens-death-043820320.html
“Bissonnette writes disparagingly that none of the SEALs were fans of President Barack Obama and knew that his administration would take credit for ordering the May 2011 raid. One of the SEALs said after the mission that they had just gotten Obama re-elected by carrying out the raid.
But he says they respected him as commander in chief and for giving the operation the go-ahead.
Bissonnette writes less flatteringly of meeting Vice President Joe Biden along with Obama at the headquarters of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment after the raid. He says Biden told “lame jokes” no one understood, reminding him of “someone’s drunken uncle at Christmas dinner.”
If this were a GOP President, can you imagine the calls for the disloyal military personnel’s heads!
No… actually, I can’t. That sounded about par for the course from a military guy. They are a breed apart from people in politics (Biden, the ultimate gabby pol, would seem particularly alien to them), but as Doug said, they respect their commander in chief AS commander in chief.
Neither President Obama nor anyone in his national security team can know what it was like to be on the sharp end of that operation. Just as the shooters can’t know how things went in all those intel briefings and strategy sessions in which the decisions that sent them into Pakistan were made. Their commanding officer, the admiral who ran the operation, says Obama DESERVES credit for the decisions he made. And while I initially thought much like those SEALs seem to have thought — that Obama was just the guy lucky enough to be president when they got bin Laden — what I read in the days and weeks after that raid, about the long process that led up to it, eventually persuaded me that the admiral was right.
@Kathryn – What has this president done to deserve loyalty from the military?
He got elected president. That’s all it takes.
We’re blessed to live in a country in which respect for duly constituted legal authority is a deeply held value among our military personnel, particularly among the officer corps. REALLY blessed, seeing as how we have the world’s most powerful military, by far — which could mean trouble if they did NOT have that respect for duly constituted authority.
I do worry about the distance in understanding between our military and the civilian population, ever since we got rid of the draft.
I heard PART of an interesting discussion on NPR the other day while in the car, and would have posted about it if I could have heard a bit more of it.
It was about a program to help returning veterans make the transition to civilian life. A crux of the program seemed to be to help veterans find a sense of MISSION in the civilian world, something to give their daily lives meaning.
The people discussing it searched for words to describe what these military folk found missing in civilian life. Mention was made of the profit motive, and several references were made to the “corporate world.” But the words were inadequate. What is missing in so much of civilian life and present in the military is the reality of SERVICE, of living according to priorities greater than one’s own. What military people have trouble adjusting to is the utter selfishness of life outside the uniformed services.
There were some happy stories, such as the woman who has found what was missing for her in being a firefighter — one of those corners of civilian life that have a similar sense of service, and I suppose esprit de corps, to military life.
But to bring us back to our discussion… military people have trouble respecting self-interest, whether it’s found in the world of business or in politics. The sense of being out for oneself or one’s company or one’s party come across as UNSEEMLY to them.
This is something I understand because I grew up in that culture. It’s kind of weird. Though I never served in uniform, I’ve had something of a lifelong difficulty adjusting to civilian life. So much of it seems tawdry, or at least lacking in meaningful purpose.
Anyway, you’ll hear echoes of that when military people talk about politicians. They often have the same problem with business…
As to the issue of whether Obama deserves respect from the military: a classic wingnut meme. Brad is right on the mark. By the way, I remember seeing a picture of Dick Cheney when he was VP wearing a jacket with an armored forces patch. Did no one ever teach him the protocol about who may wear unit insignia?
“He got elected president. That’s all it takes.”
Apparently that’s all it takes to get a Nobel Peace Prize too. Which is why a NPP is about as impressive to have as a snow globe paperweight these days.
Respect is earned, not an automatic right. If a poll were taken right now, I bet there’s be more Romney supporters in the military than Obama supporters.
Have you ever worked for a boss you didn’t respect? He was your leader, does that earn him your respect? Obama is the boss of the country, it doesn’t automatically mean I have to have respect for him or be loyal to him.
Where was the respect from the people screaming about this when Bush was president. Half of Hollywood was threatening to renoucne their US citizenship if Bush was re-elected, and not one did.
I’ve worked for bosses that I didn’t respect. But they were still the boss, and I didn’t harm the company by whining about it in public.
Brad, remember when journalism was a public-service mission?
Yes. That’s why I chose the profession. (Well, that… and the fact that I found anything involving writing or editing far easier than most people would.) And I’m not sure I’ll ever adjust to the loss of that sense of mission. Too bad there’s no program to help veterans of the newspaper wars adjust to “civilian” life. 🙂 I have to smile at that, because as little as the larger society understands about military veterans, they understand — and care — far less about us ink-stained wretches. Which I suppose is as it should be.
Blogging — at least the way I do it — doesn’t seem to be a good substitute in that respect. Yeah, I’m doing much the same thing, and I enjoy it, but I don’t know… maybe it just seems too self-indulgent…