Curmudgeonly Dudgeon
In a healthy polity in a country with America’s Constitution, any politician who referred to the President as the "commander-in-chief," without the phrase "of the armed forces" immediately following, would be disqualified from public office – not by any formal law but by the sensible revulsion of the citizenry. That would disqualify every single speaker I heard this week at the DNC except, possibly, Michelle Obama, whom I liked anyway – she has a becoming discomfort with being the focus of crowds. You can see it in those awkward expressions when the camera lights on her. The rest of them: a symptom of the problem – we’ve come to fetishize the military.
I’ve been harping on this for years now, but the President ain’t your "commander-in-chief" and he ain’t my "commander-in-chief" and he ain’t the commander-in-chief of my dogs and hamsters and shrubs. If you, personally, are in the military, disregard the forgoing: he’s your commander-in-chief, and so long as he’s giving lawful orders, you should do what he says. For the rest of us, he’s just a guy. Admittedly, a guy with the power of life and death over every human being on the globe (if he’s willing to go out in a blaze of glory).
Needless to say, I expect everyone next week to disqualify themselves too. More, I expect them to disgrace themselves.
Comment by David Kaib —
August 29, 2008 @ 1:23 am
That drives me bananas too. Sure there are constitutional provisions that are opaque or vague, but leaving out words is a sure fire way to miss the point.
Reading the whole clause makes it far harder to conclude that he should be
Comment by ajay —
August 29, 2008 @ 4:43 am
a guy with the power of life and death over every human being on the globe.
Only the ones he can find. Not the ones who have been making amateur video messages for the last ten years…
Comment by kid bitzer —
August 29, 2008 @ 8:39 am
wholeheartedly agree.
also–if you’re in the military, but your branch of the military is national guard, then he is not your commander-in-chief either, until you are “called into the actual Service of the United States”.
gee–you don’t suppose that’s maybe another reason why our national guards have been getting called into service so much lately, do you?
Comment by Chris Quinones —
August 29, 2008 @ 10:00 am
To defend Obama just a bit, he used the term only in the context of the conduct of war, so I think the qualifier was implicitly there. I saw none of the other speeches and read transcripts of only a few, so I’m not trying to defend anybody else.
Comment by mrfred —
August 29, 2008 @ 10:35 am
is the president also c-in-c of the post office and the office of the surgeon general?
Comment by Kevin J. Maroney —
August 29, 2008 @ 10:39 am
I just checked seven speeches from Thursday and the only speaker who referred to “commander in chief” was Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration (Ret), who specifically referred to “our men and women in uniform and their families, veterans who share my commitment to making Barack Obama our commander-in-chief”. Maybe Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were CinC-fests, but Thursday definitely wasn’t.
Comment by Brendan —
September 1, 2008 @ 8:08 am
One of my pet peeves, too, especially these last seven years. Well said.