Lather
Martin Lewis at the Huffington Post urges General Peter Pace to "relieve the President of his command. Not of his Presidency. But of his military role as Commander-In-Chief. You simply invoke the Uniform Code Of Military Justice."
If you have reason to believe that the President is responsible for "disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces" and for "conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital" then you have the obligation to act. In addition to relieving him of his command as Commander-In-Chief, you also have authority to place the President under MILITARY arrest.
Follow the link and the read the whole thing.
Over the last two months important people in America have been arguing over the Surge. This video discussion at Pajamas Media highlights just how politically important a report on Iraq awaited in September will be. Anybody based in Washington might think the planet's axis rotated around it. But over that same period, as this site recounts, the world had other troubles. The linked site has an impressive listing of worldwide terror attacks on mostly ordinary people: minor Thai bureaucrats, Iraqi civilians, Somali senior citizens, Afghan tribesmen, Yazidis, Pakistani teachers, Algerian policemen, Buddhist monks, Philippine Marines, Christian pastors, Lebanese soldiers. Today comes news of an attack on the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, on people eating at a restaurant and watching a lightshow at a park.
The worries in Western capitals may not entirely correspond to the problems of the world. The link between the two is severed by the intermediation of politics. Like the prisoners in Plato's Cave opinion leaders often react to the shadow of events rather than the events in themselves. Some people have become blinded by their own monstrous perceptions. Some people live in a world of their own furnishing. Good God. What a place to be.
posted by wretchardthecat at 8/26/2007 03:34:00 AM
49 Comments:
Now we know what happened to all those banana republics --they moved north and formed a party. The Bananas Democrats.
Does that idiot know anything about the Constitution or the UCMJ?
Is the entire Huffingtonpost filled with idiots who allowed this to be published in the first place?
Are there any leftists at all who aren't idiots?
Somehow I doubt that Martin Lewis would have advocated placing Slick Willy under arrest for "Conduct Unbecoming an Officer and Gentlemen."
Okay, so now the Moonbats have attained an altitute where the air is so rarefied that they are advocating a Military Coup. They appear to be a weird amalgum of the Weathermen and the John Birch Society, with a measure of UFO Conspiracy people thrown in for flavor.
The SECOND thing that Gen Pace would do in this scenario would be to comandeer one of the Aleutian Islands and intern all of the Moonbats there, along with rather more than half of Congress and 85% of the lawyers.
In any case, everyone in the US military takes an oath to "Uphold and Defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic" as well as to obey the orders of the President. So, as usual, the Monnbats are not only nutty but just plain wrong.
Bush Derangement Syndrome gone yet another step further than anyone would have thought! What are these people going to do when they don't have George Bush to kick around anymore?
The weirdest aspect of this retard's theory is that General Pace could undertake a "military arrest" of the president without somehow engaging in a military coup (I seem to recall Shakespeare addressing this some time ago with that business about extracting a pound of flesh without a drop of blood). His grim insistence in the comments section that somehow a military arrest could be accomplished without a military coup is so surreal that it goes beyond anything I ever dreamed even the worst moonbats could subscribe to.
I mean, do they really want to open this can of worms? Soldiers showing up at the Executive Mansion to arrest a hated political opponent?
Apparently this dim bulb has watchesd "Seven Days in May" a few too many times...
Reading the comments following Lewis' post -- and especially his replies to the many criticisms -- I have concluded that Lewis wrote the proposal with the hope of stirring up a bunch of irrational replies. I'm sorry to say he has partly succeeded. Is he guilty of sedition? Probably. Will it be prosecuted? Unlikely -- that would lift his screed to a level it doesn't deserve (and rational people don't want).
What then to do about his irresponsible (if not borderline seditious) proposal? Recognize that his conflating of the UCMJ and the Constitution is irrational and incorrect, that his hatred of Bush has become pathological and we don't want to join him in his mental illness, and remind those who support his nonsense that what goes around comes around.
In the meantime, go to Lewis' biography and note that he is big in the entertainment industry. Next time you see his name on a Hollywood production let the sponsors know what you think of their supporting someone as deranged as Lewis. F
I wonder if it's a big troll. I think he's baiting conservatives that worship the military.
It seems to me that everyone knows that the President is the Commander in Chief but is not in the military. He is CinC because he holds the office. The military, or anyone else, CANNOT divide his authority by relieving him of some of those responsibilies that he was elected to carry out. The President can be removed from office, but only by Congress. Until then he is the Commander in Chief. Period.
The UCMJ does not apply to civilians. Is he saying it should? Since officers get their commissions from Congress, does it apply to them as well?
Good God, indeed. I thought liberals hated the military- industrial complex. The military is FAR more politically conservative than the country as a whole. And medals are supposed to give you the right to rule? Didn't we get over that when we wrote the Constitution?
This does concern me a bit. If liberals are OK with a larger political role for the military, what does that say about the state of government in this country?
Even if it's a big troll, some of the commenters clearly don't see it that way.
The name Martin Lewis reminds me of Martin & Lewis, the great comedy act (Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis) which except for the great talent could be seen as a perfect Dem symbol: half boozy, cynical, inside-playing lounge-lizard, and half dimwitted goofy off-the-wall nutty professor.
My heart sinks that Wretchard thinks to link what a British-born moonbat has to say about an uninformed Yurpy idea vis-a-vis American politics, and his list of terrorist attacks in other countries throughout the world.
Surely we in America can NOT be expected to "do something" about every terrorist derangoid throughout the world, when those countries have themselves been fostering the climate for such beheading and blowing up activities to thrive for years and years ... often as a "counterweight" to perceived American influence.
I suppose it's too much to wish that America could, just once, have an American discussion about American issues without everyone else on the planet feeling free to peer over our shoulders and snipe.
As the governor of the State of Texas replied to some pushy Yurps who have overly-concerned themselves with Texas' death penalty, "230 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens. While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.”
And, might I be so presumptuous as to suggest that Thai's in Thailand, Algerians in Algeria, and Marines in the Phillippines might try governing themselves a little bit more and taking care of their own homegrown terrorist problem, rather than throwing it in the lap of Big Brother America to be dealt with.
Go ask the French or the Iranians or the Russians to help you. They're all eager to have more of a voice in world-matters, and none of them have been accused of one-tenth the world-crimes that non-Americans like to lay at the feet of the United States.
A coups is probably inevitable in the long run. No polity survives forever, after all.
This is a subject I've been putting some thought into.
If there ever is a coups, I expect it to be quite a bit more thorough than 'just' the removal of a sitting president.
K;
One coup, two coups.
Your historical extrapolation is as incompetent as your grammar.
Go back to bed.
Actually I was heartened by the responses that I saw at the post. Given the BDS that exists, the respondents both conservative and liberal argued within the framework of the constitution, explaining that regardless of what they thought about Bush that the end of the country would happen if Lewis got his way. I saw approximately three people who supported him, and the rest were critical on a constitutional level. That tells me that regardless of the hype at the top levels of the liberal pile, I won't have to go to war in the US soon.
Why does anyone take The Huffington Post seriously? Every time you turn around, someone over there is saying something really weird. It strikes me that the site is just traffic-driven, with no intention of being truly influential.
Buddy,
That was the first thing that came to me too on reading this - Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Great minds think alike :^).
Responding to the substance of Lewis' argument seemed as pointless as answering the assertion that "fire doesn't melt steel". The subject of the conversation was absurd. The question was why it was taking place at all. What could prompt an apparently well-educated man like Lewis to seriously advance such a proposition? That was the iceberg whose tip protruded just a little bit at the Huffington Post.
It's sad, but nevertheless true that opinions like Bush=Hitler are actually sincerely held. Never mind that it's objectively absurd. Never mind that the fact the assertion can be made at all is disproof of the assertion itself. Never mind any of that. After all, if high school physics about the softening temperature of steel can be disregarded what can't be twitched aside in conversations like these?
Wretchard --
This guy is an Entertainment Exec. He's basically the guy Jay Mohr played in the series "Action."
Which describes most of the elites in this nation: wanting some form of monarchy dressed up "revolutionary" rhetoric. See Fidel, Chavez, etc.
Never ever happen. The idea of a military coup in America was forever ended when Washington shamed his officers for even considering it. The US military even since that moment has seen itself as the defender of the rule of law, the Constitution and freedom itself. Officers attempting to overthrow the elected government would find themselves at the end of the barrels of their soliders' guns.
What could prompt an apparently well-educated man like Lewis to seriously advance such a proposition?
Because education and common sense are two different things.
Keitousama suggested: A coups is probably inevitable in the long run. No polity survives forever, after all.
Looks like you are not really thinking of a coup -- mpre like a civil war in which it turns out that most of the citizens in the military choose to be on one side, while the usual liberal elites are on the other side. Fairly one-sided contest, I would imagine.
Following that, one could imagine the US military evolving into a position similar to the Turkish military -- ultimate guarantor of the Constitution. If the Founding Fathers had ever imagined that the US would have had such a powerful standing military (and such a corrupted permanent political class), they might have written it into the Constitution themselves.
Unfortunately, the only way to modify the Constitution in a way unfavorable to Teddie Kennedy & his ilk would be by another American revolution.
Keitousama suggested: A coups is probably inevitable in the long run. No polity survives forever, after all.
Looks like you are not really thinking of a coup -- more like a civil war in which it turns out that most of the citizens in the military choose to be on one side, while the usual liberal elites are on the other side. Fairly one-sided contest, I would imagine.
Following that, one could imagine the US military evolving into a position similar to the Turkish military -- ultimate guarantor of the Constitution. If the Founding Fathers had ever imagined that the US would have had such a powerful standing military (and such a corrupted permanent political class), they might have written it into the Constitution themselves.
Unfortunately, the only way to modify the Constitution in a way unfavorable to Teddie Kennedy & his ilk would be by another American revolution.
Daily Kos is running a poll on Marxism.
Currently, 50% of respondents believe that Karl Marx offers insight and guidance to politics in America.
I think that speaks for itself as to where the Democratic Party is: Marxist. Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
The most important word of course being dictatorship.
The US military is loyal to the federal executive - and the Kos Left should thank their lucky stars for it. If the Army brass had their way, they'd round up all these neo-Marxists and seditionists, line them up against tthe wall and shoot them - and the rank-and-file "baby killer" enlisted would be more than happy to comply. It's the rule of law that prevents them from acting on that gut impulse.
Someone should tell these jackos they shouldn't depend for their revolution on the people they habitually spit on.
I am delighted at the conversation Martin Lewis has stimulated...the Brit born Hollywood humor writer and observer of mostly show biz speaks tongue in cheek so dryly the NeoCons can't recognize satire when it bites them on the backside...did any of you follow the link to the actual letter or read the author's comments? As to the articles comment's comparison of Pace's medals and Bush's military awards, unfair and untrue. Pace took four decades to get his "been there, done that" awards. Bushie got the coveted USAF flight wings, the USAF Reserve medal, the National Defense Service Medal and maybe another...as did every reserve AF pilot. With a little help from the tower he was able to return his F-102, in fairness, not the easiest plane in the inventory to fly, to its correct parking spot after each short training flight...
I did read the article and comments. I'm also aware that the author's ideological comrades in arms murdered over 100 million people last century - 'only in jest', no doubt - and who in Venezuela and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe seem keen to continue their traditional attempts at 'humour'.
My comment stands. And again I remind, that people who make a point to regularly vilify the US military shouldn't depend on their good graces if the Left ever decides to overstep the federal executive. The overwhelming majority of servicemembers in our military, to include those serving in Iraq, have a great deal of respect for President Bush. I can't say the same for their sentiments regarding spokespeople for the Left, who were stumping for Saddam's regime in the 1990s, and who abuse our CiC and his cabinet and ridicule our mission "on behalf of the simple soldier" ... if there was a choice of manipulating the military law code to get at someone I'm pretty sure who most of the military would choose to throw behind bars.
As for any of those draft-dodging, medal-throwing anti-US hypocrites trying to use our respect for decorated veterans as a part of their ongoing campaign of sedition, that's not even worthy of a civil response.
Oak Cliff Lee,
The expression is "too clever by half".
There's a nice Plato's cave scene by Anne Carson:
...An idol is a useless sacrifice, said Isaiah.
But how do you know which ones are useless? asked the nation in its genius.
Isaiah pondered the various ways he could answer this.
Immsense chunks of natural reality fell out of a blue sky and showers of light upon his mind.
Isaiah chose the way of metaphor.
Our life is like a _camera obscura_, said Isaiah, do you know what that is?
Never heard of it, said the nation.
Imagine yourself in a darkened room, Isaiah instructed.
Okay, said the nation.
The doors are closed, there is a pinhole in the back wall.
A pinhole, the nation repeated.
Light shoots through the pinhole and strikes the opposite wall.
The nation was watching Isaiah, bored and fascinated at once.
You can hold up anything you like in front of that pinhole, said Isaiah, and worship it on the opposite wall.
Why worship an image? asked the nation.
Exactly, said Isaiah...
- Anne Carson, Book of Isaiah
General Smedley Butler was honorable enough to decline the far Right's invitation to become an American Pinochet avant la lettre in 1934 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler#Exposes_the_Business_Plot]. Doubtless General Pace will also place his oath of allegiance and the Constitution above whatever personal qualms he may have about GW Bush as Commander in Chief.
And Martin Lewis' avowals that "I am not advocating a military coup" are as unconvincing as if someone wrote an op-ed advocating that all federal officials must declare their belief in the Trinity and sola Scriptura, but kept protesting "Of course I'm not advocating an establishment of religion here".
It's the intellectual equivalent of mooning. Just roll your eyes and keep walking.
This about sums it up...,
..."He likes living in Hollywood because it constantly lulls him into a false sense of in-security."
From Lewis full bio.
---"A gentleman is understood to have a duty to avoid dishonest acts, displays of indecency, lawlessness, dealing unfairly, indecorum, injustice, or acts of cruelty."----
Mr Lewis is no gentleman.
"Actually I was heartened by the responses that I saw at the post. Given the BDS that exists, the respondents both conservative and liberal argued within the framework of the constitution, explaining that regardless of what they thought about Bush that the end of the country would happen if Lewis got his way."
Yeah, I thought many of the responses were reasonable too. I had a flying pigs moment reading Lewis' article.
So here we have the military, whose members voted overwhelmingly (I seem to recall over 70%) in favor of Bush in both elections. We have someone suggesting that a military whose rank & file prefer the sitting President to the alternative would, after taking power, replace him with . . . who?
Cheney is next. So Lewis suggests he could receive the same treatment.
We're back to the question. Replace him with who? Pelosi? Lewis is honestly suggesting that he thinks our military would willing to put her in the Oval Office?
It makes so little sense, I'm surprised that many of the replies are so calm and rational. It smacks of the behavior of a child in a group of children who, if he or she can't get control of a prized toy, breaks it so none of the other kids can play with it either.
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Ardsgaine said...
"It's the intellectual equivalent of mooning. Just roll your eyes and keep walking..."
Not at all. Mr. Lewis chose to use satire to couch his hatred of an effective US chief executive in a narrative calling for a "peaceful" coup. Since his essay was meant to foster discourse, I choose to use his abusive piece to remind readers of the seditious hatred the author's ideological friends have expressed for decades towards the US military, their tendency towards violent brutality and dictatorship elsewhere, their cordial sentiments regarding Saddam's regime a mere decade ago, and so on.
I know exactly what this 'jovial' character is up to. If Mr. Lewis chooses to bare his buttocks in my presence, he deserves what he gets in return.
Yashmak, the replies were rational but I'm not sure of the calm classification. He spent an inordinate amount of time defending himself to the angry people who he imagined as natural allies.
Humor from attempted humor. Chaplinesque, although Charlie planned his humor.
If it's so poorly written that no one can tell it's satire, including the people it's aimed at on the Left who like to hear things like this, then is it really satire? Or merely "in vino veritas" musings of an open-eyed fugue.
Interesting that it took two full days to come up with the "satire" spin. If it was satire, wouldn't that have been an immediate response after the first "WTF!"?
For grins, does anyone want to make up a theoretical list of whom the US Military, in case of coup d'etat, would like to "put up against the wall". Just to drive home the point that any Lefty hoping for a military coup d'etat in the US is stupid beyond all belief.
John Murtha is my first nomination.
Hillary Clinton is my second.
Michael Moore
Sean Penn
Susan Saradon standing in front of Tim Robbins so one bullet will perforate both of them at the same time
Pinch Sulzberger
Ted Kennedy
John Kerry
al franken
keith ellison
noam chomsky
from the HuffPo twit's Wikipedia entry:
"He was educated at an elite private school - University College School in Hampstead - but was expelled at the age of 14. He had no formal education after his expulsion." -emphasis added
Of course, this would mean civil war.
Luckily no one will ever take an idiot like this seriously. But it is amazing and appalling to watch someone casually advocate a course of action that would result in death for himself and many others. Fools who don't know that fire burns
I would also observe that this willingness to use the military to overturn an election - even in the absence of a willing military - bodes ill for the fate of civil liberty under a future (and, sooner or later, inevitable) Democrat administration.
Y'all remember 1964's Seven Days in May, maybe the classic coup d'etat movie where Kirk Douglas saved the constitution from Burt Lancaster? I went to Wickapedia to get the year right and found these interesting production notes...JFK's support, after reading the novel...segue forward to the time the never vague Gen. Haig, to discourage mischief from the Rooskis, stated that in the departure of RMN he would be in charge at the White House. Meanwhile, down at Camp Swampy a newly minted Captain is pressed into service to be Staff Duty Officer at Post HQ, in the absence of Majors TDY or on leave, gets a call from down the hall that a "flash" priority message has been received, "flash, as in the balloons gone up" and carefully dials the first five numbers in his SOP for priority message receipt and pre beepers and cell phones, gets no answer except from the Command Sgt Maj's babysitter who said he's at his daughter's gymnastic practice. So he called his own Battalion CO, a LTC who lived on post and showed up in 9 long minutes, opened the sealed "eyes only" message and blanched pale for a Sicilian. "That arrogant bastard, Haig is actually sending an all commands message instructing us to ignore any direct instructions from the White House not properly authenticated through channels. To this day, he wonders if his boss was pulling his leg...anybody ever hear of this scary incident, surely some of you read the message?
Frankenheimer said that Pierre Salinger conveyed to him President Kennedy's wish that the film be made, "these were the days of General Walker" and, though the Pentagon did not want the film made, the President would conveniently arrange to visit Hyannis Port for a weekend when he needed to shoot at the White House.
In an example of guerrilla filmmaking, director John Frankenheimer photographed actor Martin Balsam being ferried out to the supercarrier USS Kitty Hawk, formerly CVA-63, anchored at Naval Station San Diego without prior Defense Department permission.
[2]
Frankenheimer wanted a shot of Kirk Douglas entering the Pentagon, but could not get permission because of security considerations...so he rigged a movie camera in a parked station wagon to photograph Douglas walking up to the Pentagon. Douglas actually received salutes because he was wearing the uniform of a U.S. Marine Corps colonel. [3]
Efforts were made to make the movie appear to take place in the future, e.g. the use of the then-futuristic technology of video teleconferencing.
Might I suggest then, as I am as much of a pacifist as any Marxist and only wish good for the American people, that General Pace use his influence with President Bush to pass a law that revokes the citizenship and property rights of Leftists? I don't advocate any violence, mind - just that the Left, who collectively show no respect for the rights of citizens and their property, shouldn't enjoy such benefits themselves. The proceeds can be used to alleviate the suffering of people living in government housing - say, to spruce up the living quarters of servicemen and their dependants living on base. It can all be done by executive order.
I speak only in jest, of course.
Lewis is now back pedalling furiously, and claiming he was indulging in Swiftian satire.
We are expected to weigh up the possibilities. A) Lewis is rife with BDS and was serious (see his posting record for evidence). or B) Lewis was satirising crazy anti-Bush leftists by taking their nonsense to an extreme.
There's one obvious possibility as far as I can see, given that Lewis is a crazy anti-Bush leftist himself and thus unlikely to lay bare his own psychoses via the medium of satire.
Tom Friedman's column in last Sunday's NYT was almost as "funny" as this piece.
Tom argues that Osama has out-Swift-boated Bush. If Osama was a political opponent, Karl Rove would have published TV commercials to vilify him.
Tom's hanging out at Al Jazeera, and the conversation always turns to "Abu Ghraib" within 30 seconds. Why does Bush let Arabs, and people in Africa and Europe, think of his in terms of Abu Ghraib. This is when I can start to tell it's satire, since Tom's own paper ran Abu on the front page for 37 straight days.
Bottom line, according to Tom, is we should run commercials, in Arabic, natch, to counter the negative image we have. Because, you know what, Osama would beat Bush in an election in Islamofanatistan!
I'm pretty sure Tom was just pitching for his buds at Al Jazeera to get the White House to buy a lot of commercials.
See how "funny" it is?
What amazes me is the blithe irresponsibility of liberal Democrats, who play with the possibility of civil war as if it were just another card to play in a conventional political game.
But it isn't
"But I wan't going to shoot him. I didn't owe him a shot anyway, so
I dragged him into the parlor. There in the parlor was Nadezhda
Vasilyevna clean off her head, with a drawn saber in her hand, walking
about and looking at herself in the glass. And when I dragged Nikitinsky into the parlor she ran and sat down in the armchair. She had a velvet crown on trimmed with feathers. She sat in the armchair very brisk and alert and saluted me with the saber. Then I stamped on my master Nikitinsky, trampled on him for an hour or maybe more. And in that time I got to know life through and through. With shooting - I'll put it this way - with shooting you only get rid of a chap. Shooting's letting him off, and too damn easy for yourself. With shooting you'll never get at the soul, to where it is in a fellow and how it shows itself. But I don't spare myself and I've more than once trampled an enemy for over an hour. You see, I want to get to know what life really is, what life's like down our way."
- from "The Life and Adventures of Matthew Pavilchenko" by Isaac Babel, 1929, trans. by Walter Morison, reprinted in ISAAC BABEL, THE COLLECTED STORIES, New American Library, 1974.
"There's one obvious possibility as far as I can see, given that Lewis is a crazy anti-Bush leftist himself and thus unlikely to lay bare his own psychoses via the medium of satire."
Agreed. An additional possibility is that while Lewis is innately intelligent, successful and well-connected, he is not well-educated and while at full froth in his BDS and arrogance, he has proven that he is not well-educated.
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