Replies to post #46163 on Discover GOP Opprobrium

[teapeebubbles]

In the coming issue of Joint Force Quarterly, an official military journal widely distributed among officers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff writes a welcome but unusual open letter to everyone who wears an Armed Forces uniform: stay out of the political arena during the election season.

“The U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times and in all ways,” wrote the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, the nation’s highest-ranking officer. “It is and must always be a neutral instrument of the state, no matter which party holds sway.”

It’s good advice, and a good policy. If only the Army’s public affairs office had taken the Admiral’s advice. Phillip Carter has the story:

The Army’s public affairs office publishes a daily roundup of Army-related news called “Stand To” — named for the set of procedures combat units do just prior to dawn, when they go to full alert for a possible enemy attack. The daily wrap-up contains links to mainstream media articles, Army press releases, foreign media stories and blogs. It’s similar to the Defense Department’s Early Bird — but much briefer, and obviously more focused on the Army.

Tuesday’s edition contained an entry under “WHAT’S BEING SAID IN BLOGS” that struck me as unusual — both for its headline and its patent political bias: “Obama: World peace thru surrender (KDIHH)”

“KDIHH” refers to a milblog called “Knee Deep in the Hooah,” published by a former Army officer whose son is serving in Iraq now. In this case, KDIHH ran an item suggesting soldiers would “throw away all ammo” under an Obama administration, who would “surrender” when “we are winning.”

And the Army’s public affairs office thought this was worthy of wider distribution? Under the imprimatur of the U.S. Army? Right after the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff explained the importance of staying out of partisan politics during the election?

The problem isn’t that KDIHH attacked Obama. KDIHH is hopelessly wrong, but it’s his blog, and he can be as wrong as he wants to be.

The problem is with the poor judgment shown by the Army’s public affairs office, and what this tells us about the intersection of the Army and Republican politics. Carter added:

[T]he “Stand To” page is different — and Tuesday’s edition crosses the line. This isn’t some citizen’s blog or website. It’s the in-house public affairs digest of the United States Army. It should not be amplifying partisan political attacks, nor should it be airing them at all. This appears like yet another example of the unusually cozy relationship which has developed over the last generation or so between the military and the right wing of American politics — an unhealthy development, to say the least.

Last time I checked, soldiers and civilian officials didn’t swear an oath to either political party or to their current president. Rather, they swear their fidelity to the Constitution, and the ideals it embodies, including the subordination of the military to civil authority. Adm. Mullen is right: As we enter a contentious election year, where issues of national security are likely to dominate the debate, the military needs to stay on the sidelines.

I would have hoped this was obvious to everyone. Apparently some have missed the memo.

[teapeebubbles]

In the latest NBC/WSJ poll, released yesterday, there was a noticeable trend when it came to age groups — the younger the voter, the more likely he/she was to support Barack Obama. The only age group in which John McCain excelled was with those over 65 (who prefer McCain to Obama, 48% to 41%).

How can Obama win older voters over? Perhaps McCain’s position on Social Security might help.



Yesterday afternoon, in response to a question about his position, McCain said, “I’m not for quote privatizing Social Security, I never have been, I never will be.” This, of course, contrasted nicely with a comment McCain made after the last presidential election in which told a questioner that “…without privatization, I don’t see how you can possibly, over time, make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits.”

As Kombiz Lavasany put it, “Someone should tell John McCain that if you’re going to misrepresent a position you’ve held, you should probably not have held the opposite position on video.”

Like most of McCain’s reversals, it’s amusing on a certain level to find dozens of examples of Mr. Straight Talk, who emphasizes his consistency, taking both sides of major issues. But when it comes to Social Security, McCain’s incoherence might matter more than most.

A few days ago, publius had an item I agreed with wholeheartedly.

So apparently old white people don’t like Obama so much. You know what they do like? Social Security. You know what they don’t like? Private accounts. And though he’s recently flip-flopped, McCain has supported Bush’s private accounts. He told the WSJ this March: “As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it — along the lines that President Bush proposed.”

When the WSJ informed him that his website only favored private accounts as “supplements,” he told the WSJ that he would change the website. (He didn’t, perhaps because McCain wasn’t grasping the policy details at the time).

He’s since flip-flopped, but Obama should still hammer him on this — if for no other reason than to show that McCain doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about…. If I were Obama, I would literally start putting the commercials up in Florida tomorrow. I mean, if only people had had a chance to invest a third of their Social Security benefits in the roaring markets over the past three years — just imagine the returns.

Quite right. I had an item a few weeks ago noting that McCain has been all over the place on Social Security, at times contradicting himself, and at other times contradicting his own campaign’s policy.

But the bottom line includes two key angles. First, McCain looks at Bush’s fiasco of a policy from 2005 and wants to do the exact same thing. And second, he wants to get into a semantics debate over the meaning of the word “privatization” — as McCain sees it, he wants Americans to be able to remove funds from the Social Security system and put them in private accounts. Told that this is the very definition of privatization, McCain denies it (or, at least denies it now, after agreeing a few years ago).

This hasn’t become much of a campaign issue; in fact, it’s pretty much non-existent on the political world’s radar. But keep an eye on Social Security; it just might end up making a difference.