CNN is scandalized:
President Obama forgets to saluteAs is Politico:
President Obama seemingly preoccupied forgot one piece of protocol as he boarded Marine One on his way to Annapolis Friday.
Obama walked past the Marine at the bottom of the helicopter's stairs and didn't give the traditional salute.
Realizing his mistake upon entering Marine One the president pivoted in the doorway, jogged back down, shook hands and spoke briefly with the Marine, before boarding the helicopter for a second time.
President Barack Obama skipped a presidential tradition Friday, by not saluting the Marine standing guard outside of Marine One....Obama did not violate "protocol." He did not flout a deep-rooted American "tradition."
It's not the first time Obama's Marine salutation made news. In February 2009, Obama shook hands with the Marine outside of Marine One, when normally presidents just salute and board the helicopter.
As Garry Wills explained in 2007:
That is an innovation that was begun by Ronald Reagan. Dwight Eisenhower, a real general, knew that the salute is for the uniform, and as president he was not wearing one. An exchange of salutes was out of order.And as David Alexander of Reuters noted in 2008:
Reagan's decision raised eyebrows at the time....So this became "protocol" simply because Ronnie wanted to play soldier. Out of deference to a president who happened to be an overgrown child, the Marine Corps commandant said, "Sure, whatever you want."
John Kline, then Reagan's military aide and now a Minnesota congressman, advised him that it went against military protocol for presidents to return salutes.
Kline said in a 2004 op-ed piece in The Hill that Reagan ultimately took up the issue with Gen. Robert Barrow, then commandant of the Marine Corps.
Barrow told Reagan that as commander in chief of the armed forces, he was entitled to offer a salute -- or any sign of respect he wished -- to anyone he wished, Kline wrote....
So if Obama failed to salute, I heartily approve. He should never salute under these circumstances. No president should.
*****
AND: The Weekly Standard's Daniel Halper is also an idiot, as, apparently, is the entire White House press corps. From the pool report:
A few White House regulars were atwitter (and on Twitter) when the President walked directly up the steps of Marine One without saluting the Marine on duty.Oh, please. Get a grip.
13 comments:
As a veteran of the unpopular war, the war swept under the rug, the veterans ignored at best, I find this faux military hero worship and the attendent, as with the arrorgant pond scum of your previous post, overblown sense of entitlement pretty damned disgusting. Reminds me of something g'da used to say about "reservation indians".
I'm not proud of what I did. You'd no more find me marching in a parade than begging on street corners.
Maybe that Marine should write the President up. Give him some disciplinary PT.
See #4:
http://rense.com/general37/fascism.htm
I asked this question a few years ago, and I'll throw it out there again (this topic came up at LG&M yesterday, and I kind of beaten-up a bit - only not in a nasty, bad way - for having brought this up), please tell me where in those defining characteristics of Fascism, America DOESN'T fit?
Isn't anyone else tired of the bleating of the MSM sheep on every little detail, every little thing to throw at Bamz...???
It's the media we have instead of the media we wish we had. Sigh
Didn't the wingnuts flip their lids the first time Obama saluted a Marine Guard, screeching that as a civilian he had no right and how dare he behave as if he did?
NBB,
You expect consistency?
Here, let me remind you of the rules:
-What ever Obama does, is wrong.
-And whatever Obama doesn't do, is right - unless it's also wrong - TBD by our Reich-wingers.
-And if Obama knew about something, then obviously, he's guilty.
-And if Obama didn't know about something, then obviously, by not knowing about it, he's guilty of something, something, something - TBD by our Reich-wingers.
One more of these 180's, and I think we'll have to call 911, because it will finally snap the necks of Bo and Luke 'Duke,' and their dead bodies may present a 'hazard' in the area.
Ah, my dear Victor/c u n d gulag (and may I say what a pleasure it is to be encountering you over at Booman's joint these days?), surely you observed the large tongue bulge disfiguring the outlines of my cheek as I typed that?
That's exactly what happened, NBB, no tongue action required.
Question Steve, as ahm watchin' m langege and all that: is pompous pond scum a suitable substitute for White Christian Nationalist (NAZI)? Out here on The High Desert we don't have a lot in the way of "ponds", the only ones I have any familiarity with are those down in town where the sewer plant is? Whole it certainly suits it just doesn't have the... ring.
No fear.
The hilarious thing is that I may know that particular Marine, and he don't give a shit whether the President salutes him or not. He's just honored to be flying the President around. Beats the multiple tours of Iraqnam and Afghanisnam that he flew... yeppers, the USMC assign a combat vet to fly the President. Hmm. Wonder what the USMC knows that we don't know about the extremes that our extreme right is up to?
Situations of special anxiety apart, when normal humans have nothing to talk about they stop talking.
Politicians and politics-focused journos don't have that option.
They have to keep flapping their jaws, the journos because they can't have dead air and the pols because they can't let somebody else take the mike, even for a moment.
But we don't have to listen.
Anyway, not yet, and not everywhere.
That's one reason why sensible Americans acquire the habit of ignoring politics.
Another is that the journos and pols talk such shocking codswallop when they do have something worthwhile to talk about.
And another is that we ordinary folk are only the victims of history, while the actors, those who make it happen, are monsters at worst and never better than the best roommate you ever had in college.
The journos are only the chorus.
TB
Not wishing to be too pedantic
which war is/was popular least of all by those who fought it ?
Those who think a war is something to be proud of has NEVER BEEN IN ONE or is sociopathic and dangerous.
One can be proud of doing one's duty and we should respect those who did but let's be real war in and of itself is only good(popular) in the movies.
As for the aftermath, PTSD in all its forms is far more insidious than the war its self because it affects more and never ends... just retreats a bit.
Victor,
Your source is not really credible I suggest you research fascism a bit more. those features could apply to any political system.
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