I daresay that such a move would make the Democratic opponents less popular…
Disobeying the orders of the CINC is a pretty bold step for a soldier to take. He better make daam sure he knows what he is doing…
I agree with you that there is no practical way to hold Bush to account for this, since he is the Commander In Chief and heads the Executive Branch. And the soldiers can hardly be blamed for being where they are told to be.
It’s convenient on his part that he can get away with it. But that still doesn’t make it right.
No. This kind of stuff doesn’t “just happen.” In this day and age, everything the president utters in public is carefully screened beforehand by his advisors. Every photo op is pre-planned. Nothing is spontaneous. Anybody who gets within touching distance of the President is there because his handlers have allowed it.
Isn’t it the Secret Service that guards the President personally? I know that there are marines that are stationed outside the White House with some very intimidating weapons, but they aren’t his personal bodyguards. They aren’t going to just be randomly hanging out behind him while he’s on camera.
OK, I can agree that a president shouldn’t use the military for political props. I would go so far as to say that they should go out of their way not to appear to be doing so. When we have such a president in the Whitehouse, I’ll send some of my old winter coats to those poor souls in hell-- a place that may very well hold more ex-presidents than that other place.
Bush may do this kind of stuff more often than others, but it’s just not realistic to think that presidents aren’t going to be shameless when pimping their policies.
So if a servicemember, dressed in the same uniform he wore attending the (hypothetical) political speech by Bush, attends a political speech by Hillary, should he be prosecuted under military regulations?
When FDR addressed the 1944 Democratic National Convention, he did so remotely from a navy base, where he was “in the performance of my duties under the Constitution.”
That sure didn’t stop him from taking potshots at his political opponents in that speech.
So he used his office, and the military trappings, and a blistering attack on his opponents in one speech. I’m sure there was lots of grumbling about it at the time. But suggestions that Roosevelt be punished for it would have been seen as unseemly, and suggestions that the military that facilitated such by punished would have been seen as more so.
I guess times were different then. After all, there was a war on. 
Well, that was in the days before a president told us with a straight face that “when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.” We need to be a little more careful about selective application of the laws in this post-Nixon era.
Or is that the principle you’re arguing for here?
I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Ms. Clinton is a candidate for president, and will be holding and/or attending many purely political rallies between now and when she wins. The way I read the rules, it would be improper for military or ex-military folks to attend such a rally while in uniform. But if she were giving a press conference to discuss legislation pending in the Senate, it’s unclear (to me, at least) whether that would be considered a political event. She will no doubt visit Iraq sometime between now and the election, and it’s likely that she’ll be photographed with and/or interviewed with military personnel present. I don’t see that as a political event.
But I still think Bush is a unique figure wrt this regulation and his military policies, because it’s main purpose is to ensure that no one gives the military stamp of approval, even implicitly, to a political event. But it’s the job of the military to carry out the administration’s policies, like the war in Iraq. Asking “what is the military’s position on abortion” is different from asking “what is the military’s position on the war in Iraq”. The answer to the former is “there isn’t one”, but the answer to the later is “we support it”.
Bush will no doubt be seen pushing his vision for what we need to do in Iraq with General Petreaus, in uniform, by his side later this summer. I don’t see anything wrong with that. But if he were doing so when he was talking about abortion or immigration, then that would be inappropriate.
Of course, this is just my interpretation.
What did Bush do that was illegal here?
You know, this is really getting silly. We get it that you you don’t like Bush. Pretending that he broke some law because he gave a press conference with a few soldiers is ludicrous.
A serviceman in uniform attends a political speech by George Bush on a military base. The next day, also in uniform, he attends a political speech by Hillary Clinton at a civic auditorium.
Should he be prosecuted under military regulations for either of the acts?
Well, the regulation makes an exception for patriotic functions. Attending a Bush rally is patriotic. Attending a rally for Clinton is not. I think that should be obvious.
If Bush is condemning Democrats as surrender monkeys and promoting Republicans as defenders of liberty, it is not clear. Elucidate.
Probably nothing, unless he illegally ordered members of the armed services to stand behind him, in uniform, while he played political games. I was just going along with Mr. Moto’s little ‘FDR did it too’ thing.
Of course the issue at hand isn’t the President, but the actions of uniformed military.
It’s either illegal to endorse political speech while wearing a uniform, or it’s not.
If it is, the folks standing behind the president broke the law, and provided a bad example to the thousands of other servicemembers who watched them do so; and the guys at the demonstration wearing stripped cammo broke the rules too.
If it’s not, then the marines have no beef with the demonstrators.
I suppose some might say that it’s OK in one instance, but not the other, but their position implies that uniformed political action by our vets is only legal when those actions are taken in support of our Republican president. That is a crock of shit.
Do you have a cite for Bush calling Democrats surrender monkeys, or did you make that up?
Squink: Here’s the thing. In the article linked to in the OP, the event was unambiguously political in nature. The press conference (or whatever it was) that the president gave in the other example may or may not have been political in nature. I don’t think either of us knows enough about military policy to know the answer to that. If the incident had happened at a rally back before the last presidential election (something where Bush/Cheney in '04 banners were prominently displayed, for example) then it would have been inappropriate.
Now, if you can cite a case in which someone in the military was punished for standing in uniform at the WhiteHouse with a president while the president talked about his military policy, then you’ll have made your case. Otherwise, I don’t think you have much of a leg to stand on here.
I made it up; did you not see the part about this being a *hypothetical * event? I am trying to create two equivalent, clearly political events to test whether military regulations should be enforced equally.
To be honest, I didn’t understand what the reference to a hypothetical Bush event meant since you didn’t use that term to describe the event with Hillary Clinton.
What I’ve been trying to point out is that the issue isn’t as simple as you seem to want to make it out to be. But if the events are both clearly political, then I do think the policy should be the same regardless of whether it’s Bush or Clinton. I think I made that clear in my last post. The thing to keep in mind, though, is that Bush is the Commander in Chief, and it’s his job to articulate what his military policy is. Clinton isn’t in that role (yet), so I can imagine certain events that might appear to be equivalent on the surface, but differ in the fact that in one we have the Commander in Chief, and in the other we don’t.
When Bush is acting in his role as president, I don’t think it’s easy to distinguish the political from the non-political. Even with Clinton that’s the case, since she has a role as a US Senator. With someone like Edwards or Giuliani, it’s a lot easier-- neither of those guys has any governmental role and probably should be assumed to be in “candidate mode” 100% of the time.
Which sort of negates the “patriotic functions” exception; is it more patriotic to listen a President than a Senator?
Don’t let the whooosh sound knock you over, Fear. 
:smack: It gets confusing when you argue both sides, John.
Did you read the excerpts of the Bush speech I posted? Of course it was political.
The text of the regulation is quite plain. I see no reason to nuance the meaning out of it so as to exhonerate the one group, and dishonorably discharge the other.
Does it really make such an exception? If so, that’s amazing. I’d really enjoy seeing someone tell a veteran that it’s not patriotic to use his Right to Free Speech to keep the government accountable to The People.