Yes, I know the idea seems on its face too preposterous to warrant serious discussion; but onesome other boards I’ve seen angry right-wingers argue, seriously, that the military will never go along with Obama’s program and might even oust him in a coup d’etat and might even be required by honor to do so, because “their oath is to the Constitution, not the president.”
Commissioned officers’ Oath of Office is slightly different:
Either way, can either oath be interpreted to allow, or require, the military to take political action of any kind when the POTUS is acting in a way they consider unconstitutional? If so, how outrageous would the circumstances have to be?
No. A coup D’etat could not under any circumstances be considered acting to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” This is for two reasons:
First, the constitution provides tools to remove a president (or other federal officers). Going outside of those is in and of itself acting to thwart and oppose the constitution of the United States.
Secondly, a coup is an act to replace X with Y. Doing so is fundamentally at odds to the constitution–because it installs someone in office who has not been elected/appointed/arrived at that office pursuant to the constitution’s requirements.
This, of course, excludes the case in which Y has been determined to be the legitimate president of the United States (for example, if Ron Paul moved into the White House on Jan 20, and Obama sought to oust him after getting a ruling from the Supreme Court), in which case it’s not a coup at all–the army would then be following legitimate orders from its commander-in-chief. (though he’d more likely come with a U.S. marshal with a court order than with tanks).
On a practical level, the armed forces are made up of professionals who take their obligations seriously, and who (correctly) have no question about who is and who is not their commander-in-chief. I can’t really imagine a scenario where the military (1) knows who should be charge solidly enough to justify removing someone else from office, but (2) the normal procedures for doing so (impeachment/supreme court) haven’t conclusively determined the question (again, such that any removal would be pursuant to the orders of the authentic POTUS, and hence not a coup at all).
The most plausible circumstances I can think of would be the “President Clark” scenerio that played out in the Babylon 5 show. Vice-president Clark is an accomplice to the assassination of President Santiago, and once in office rubber stamps a slow and carefully implemented plan to create a “state of emergency” which will never end. He orders the mass slaughter of unarmed civilian colonies that refuse to recognize the emergency decrees, and presides over a thinly disguised totalitarian revolution. That said, Captain Sheridan still felt compelled to resign his commission because of the awful precedent he’d set of the military overturning a (barely) legitimate civil government.
I do agree, however, that the vehemence and disrespect some Right-wingers are putting out towards the President is frightening. I think almost none of it is motivated by “honor” or truly feeling that he isn’t the properly elected president. (especially on the nuttier end, I feel some or all of it has to be motivated by racism–the “birthers” are effectively ignoring all the evidence about Obama’s birth in favor of sources like WorldNetDaily–and I can’t imagine them doing so were (say) Clinton elected).
Much of this has no basis in the constitution-for example, many of the “angry right” seem to think that if Obama was ineligible, McCain (or some other “true conservative”) would become president–when the Constitution is very clear that the President and Vice-president are elected separately (amend. XII), and that if the president cannot serve, the vice-president does (amend. XXV).
I have not to date seen any argument that President Obama is ineligible that doesn’t either ignore, grossly misstate, or mangle the constitution’s clear statement as to who would be president if they were correct–and I severely doubt any “defender of the constitution” that can’t even understand what the constitution mandates if their factual claims are correct.
It’s worth noting that the Constitution explicitly states that the president is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Ergo, a coup would be a direct violation of the Constitution and, therefore, the Oath.
Naw…they will just rant and rave and then probably talk about impeachment for a couple of years while seriously discussing his plans to make himself God King of the US or attacking Iran…
Woops…wrong President. Kind of funny though how things have turned around, ehe?
It seems to me that there’s a huge difference between calling for impeachment (which is Constitutional) and calling for armed insurrection (which is not).
The Republicans are being far sorer losers than the Democrats ever were.
There’s also a huge difference between a Congressman and Presidential candidate calling for a groundless impeachment and some wingnut wack job on the internet calling for a groundless insurrection.
Who do you think best serves to represent a political party, an elected official or an anonymous person on the internet?
Sure…I agree. Though of course it’s merely a matter of how the various nutballs look at things. We’ve had years of left wing loonies ranting about Bush…now it’s time for the right wingers to get into the act.
I actually thought exactly the same thing when my Girlfriend was sworn into her new job at the police dept. The California oath of office is the same (but also includes protecting California constitution).
Though I was thinking about a coup specifically, but surely the main threat to the constitution you will encounter while working for the police does not come from the criminals you are busting, but the laws you are meant to be enforcing. Surely you have just taken a sacred oath not enforce any law you personally feel is unconstitutional or you’ll be breaking your oath ?
I’m not even sure what a “groundless” impeachment is. Impeachment is inherently a political act. If Congress decides it has grounds for impeachment, then it has grounds for impeachment.
The left wing might have loathed Bush, but their calls to remove him from office were limited entirely to legal means. I don’t recall any voices on the left talking about revolution or insurrection the way some “patriots” on the right are these days.
My doomsday scenario involves rogue elements in the Marines, who are legendary for their loyalty to each other, and the Air Force, which has become notably friendly to evangelism in its officer corps. These elements coalesce and decide that it’s time to save America from itself - and its Constitution, which is suspended in favor of some internet crackpot interpretation of God’s Natural Law.
The military of any country would be fully justified in staging a counter coup if a civilian political group gained power by illegitimate means, such as massive electoral fraud, which I understand is fairly common in the older parts of America’s larger cities, or by insurrection, whether or not ballot box stuffing is involved.
In such circumstances the military would be acting in full accordance with their oath to a constitution which is supposed to protect the rights of the people, not various fraudulently elected minor and major monarchs.
However, the military should only hold power for as long as necessary to remove the civilian coup leaders and their enablers from their illegitimately gained positions of power with a view to trying them for breaches of the criminal code, clean up the electoral system and hold fresh elections as soon as feasible.
Seems to me that the election of an Illinois senator as President might be the ideal opportunity to fabricate the appearance of such fraud. Discontented military brass loyal to the former administration could take it from there, perhaps installing themselves as a shadow junta with the help of covert ops people. The electoral reform and special elections would go on as you say, but in reality, it would be the junta pulling the strings.
I know people want legalities and not airport paperback plots, so I’ll stop now.
The plot of the novel and movie Seven Days in May was that the President had negotiated and armwrestled through Congress a controversial disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union; one that the Joint Chiefs considered an act of suicidal folly. A coup was planned justified by their oath to “defend” the Constitution.
