(9:30PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)
Glenn Greenwald, writing for Salon, calls it “the single worst expression in American politics.”
You may have your own nominees for that distinction, but his is “Commander in Chief,” which is used these days as a substitute for President.
He quotes Joe Biden on the stump:
After next Tuesday, the very critics he has now and the rest of America will be calling him something else – they will be calling him the 44th president of the United States of America, our commander in chief Barack Obama!
Actually, I won’t be calling him that if he wins on Tuesday. I got my discharge papers in 1970. I’m not in the military any more. And neither are most Americans.
Says Greenwald:
This is much more than a semantic irritant. It’s a perversion of the Constitution, under which American civilians simply do not have a “commander in chief”; only those in the military — when it’s called into service — have one.
The President is Commander in Chief only of active duty military personnel — and only in wartime. (Some, including George Bush and Dick Cheney, would argue that we are now permanently “at war” on terrorism.)
But here’s the real risk:
Worse, “commander in chief” is a military term, which reflects the core military dynamic: superiors issue orders which subordinates obey. That isn’t supposed to be the relationship between the U.S. President and civilian American citizens, but because the mindless phrase “our commander in chief” has become interchangeable with “the President,” that is exactly the attribute — supreme, unquestionable authority in all arenas — which has increasingly come to define the power of the President.
And it’s true. It explains why people allowed Bush-Cheney and Co. to take away our civil liberties, torture people, and run rampant over the Constitution.
If Barack Obama becomes President, let’s try to call him that.
Meanwhile, back inside the Beltway, the Washington Post, like John McCain, thinks we have won the war in Iraq. Obama should be glad, they say, that Iraq is not a major issue. Says the Post:
Mr. Obama’s withdrawal proposal, which would have triggered a catastrophe in 2007 and still looked irresponsible a few months ago, now does not sound that different from what the Iraqi government and the Bush administration have lately been negotiating.
His withdrawal proposal, far from triggering a catastrophe, would have saved lives. The hope that he will rapidly end the war and occupation — and the certainty that McCain won’t — remains the primary reason I’m voting for him. There are many others, but none as important.
(Hat tip: Steve Burns of Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.)
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Vote for Obama, but you don’t need to salute him.
It’s the perfect scam. Be afraid. Give us money and we’ll protect you. This is the school-yard bully stealing your lunch money scam. It runs constantly from one generation to the next. It’s been running non-stop since the empire building began. It’ll run until the empire crumbles.
This empire has just been sacked financially from the inside. It’s an empty egg shell that Obama inherits in January.
Satya.
in our system that deserve consideration for “worst” that it’s sort of an embarrassment of poverties.
But yeah I’d rate C-I-C as #2 among the most dangerous phrases.
For me, #1 is “checks and balances” on the grounds of false advertising, but that’s a topic for another time.
about the news that Bushie has stationed an Army brigade in the midwest.
To me, it is very ominous (although considering who’s been running the country for the last 8 years–Cheney–not surprising). I’m not going to go all “OMG the GOP is planning a coup!” on you…but it is a very very bad precedent, and I’m wondering what you think.
Apologies if you’ve already written about this and I missed it or forgot.