To Hell With the Chief!
- From: Raymond <Bluerhymer@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 01:54:04 -0800 (PST)
To Hell With the Chief!
Thu, 02/07/2008 - 00:51 -- dlindorff
What is all this nonsense about us electing a "commander in chief"?
Bush has already made the title laughable
Okay, I mean we all know it's President Bush's favorite title. He
thrills to being a "war president," and loves strutting around in
front of guys in uniform and getting saluted. But really, what is this
all about?
The Constitution says that the President is the commander in chief of
the army and the navy, and of the militia if it is called to national
service. But that is really just for the sake of having a civilian at
the top of the food chain.
President cum commander in chiefs do not actually run the military.
They aren't trained to do that any more than they run education, or
run the weather service or NASA. Running the military, like running
any federal agency, is what the head of that agency does, and in the
case of the military, that's what the Joint Chiefs of Staff do. A
president certainly makes critical decisions in choosing who heads
each agency, and in broad policy matters by discussing options with
department leaders. The same is true in the case of the military with
regard to the Joint Chiefs. But presidents decidedly do not act as top
generals.
The idea that Americans, when they go to the polls, whether in a
primary or in a general election, are choosing a commander in chief,
as our feckless media pundits are wont to tell us, or as candidates
running for president are fond of saying in these trying times, is not
only overwrought rhetoric--it is downright dangerous, and idiotic too.
What voters are electing is the leader of the country--the person who
is responsible for administering the federal bureaucracy that protects
our environment, regulates our commerce, funds our education system,
builds our roads, and, oh yes, chooses the top brass that runs our
military.
Great presidents in wartime--Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and
Franklin Roosevelt--were great not because they were generals.
Certainly Lincoln and Wilson had no significant military experience,
and Roosevelt's military experience was limited. And generals who have
been presidents have been a mixed bag. General Grant was by all
accounts a poor president; Eisenhower a good one.
Our current commander in chief, because he is obsessed with this one
little aspect of his job description, has plunged the country in to
the most disastrous war of its history--a war fought entirely on
borrowed funds. Faced with a handful of rag-tag terrorists, he has
bloated the military with 30 percent more money over the course of his
tenure, so that today, the American military budget, in inflation-
adjusted dollars, is about to equal the amount the government spent on
the military in World War II, when the entire nation was mobilized to
confront two powerful adversaries in a global conflict involving
millions of American troops.
What a pathetic picture!
America doesn't need a commander in chief. It needs a wise, level-
headed leader who has the courage to acknowledge that you can't solve
problems by throwing ordnance at them, the courage to tell the
citizens of the country that we don't need to spend $1 trillion a year
on war and preparations for war, and that in fact, if we cut that
spending by two-thirds or three-fourths, we'd still have the mightiest
military in the world--and more importantly, a much stronger society
and economy.
What America needs is a president who sees the military as an option
of last resort, not an option of first resort.
Let's banish this commander in chief nonsense from the campaign. Bush
has already made the title laughable. That is, in fact, the response
we should have when we hear someone say that title in public:
A guffaw.
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