{"id":1311003,"date":"2019-06-04T19:32:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T01:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/polman-column-trump-is-still-bedeviled-by-a-dead-man\/"},"modified":"2019-06-04T19:32:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T01:32:00","slug":"polman-column-trump-is-still-bedeviled-by-a-dead-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/polman-column-trump-is-still-bedeviled-by-a-dead-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Polman column: Trump is still bedeviled by a dead man"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The quintessential Ugly American arrived in England on Monday, where it didn\u2019t take long for him to hurl insults at London\u2019s mayor. But presumably his mood will be lightened by the absence of any American vessels bearing the name John McCain.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon confirmed that a Trump flunky in the White House ordered the Navy to keep the USS John McCain \u201cout of sight\u201d when Trump visited Japan last week, to protect the president\u2019s eggshell ego and minimize the odds of a meltdown. A normal commander-in-chief \u2013 armed with an adult sensibility and mindful of the military\u2019s nonpartisan tradition \u2013 does not need to be coddled that way, but, as we know by now, this particular guy routinely puts petty above country.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Trump has defended the unnamed aide\u2019s McCain-dissing directive: \u201cSomebody did it because they thought I didn\u2019t like him, OK? And they were well-meaning.\u201d (Trump dislikes McCain, but he likes Kim Jong Un, who murdered his own uncle. Think about that.)<\/p>\n

And on Sunday\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney marched in lockstep: \u201cSome 23 or 24-year-old person on the advance team went to that site and said, \u2018Oh my goodness, there\u2019s the (USS) John McCain, we all know how the president feels about the former senator, maybe that\u2019s not the best backdrop, can somebody look into moving it?\u2019 That\u2019s not an unreasonable thing to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, it was an outrageous thing to ask. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said he would never have authorized a request to limit the visibility of the Navy destroyer (which was named for McCain\u2019s grandfather, a Navy admiral). More importantly, Shanahan sent a message to the White House \u201cthat the Department of Defense will not be politicized.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the fundamental issue here. Trump is free to stew on his own time about McCain \u2013 the war hero and POW who didn\u2019t plead bone spurs to avoid Vietnam service \u2013 but, according to a 200-year tradition and specific Defense Department guidelines, Trump is not free to bend the nonpartisan military to his partisan whims. He is not free to demand personal loyalty or to indulge personal grudges.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s been his pattern all along. He signs MAGA caps at military installations, welcomes Trump campaign banners at military events, and as far back as the Armed Services inaugural ball in January 2017, he told active service members: \u201cI like you for a lot of reasons. I like the fact that you all voted for me, right? You all voted for me!\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump fans and servile Republicans naturally don\u2019t care, but Trump\u2019s behavior seems a lot more dire than the 2014 incident when President Obama saluted a Marine guard while holding a coffee cup. (The Republican National Congressional Committee went ballistic: \u201cWait \u2013 did President Obama just salute the Marines with a LATTE in his hand?!\u201d)<\/p>\n

In the words of Diane H. Mazur, a former Air Force munitions officer and law professor, Trump\u2019s behavior is \u201cbeyond-the-pale inappropriate\u2026 politicizing the military for a president\u2019s personal benefit and vanity. Military professionalism depends on strict political neutrality. A president who openly fishes for votes and affirmation from people sworn to obey his orders will destroy that careful constitutional balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the U.S. Supreme Court defended that balance in a 1976 ruling. Four of the six majority votes were cast by Republican appointees. The court stated that the military has a constitutional responsibility to avoid \u201cboth the reality and the appearance of acting as a handmaiden for partisan political causes or candidates,\u201d and to keep \u201cofficial military activities\u2026 wholly free of (partisan) entanglements,\u201d in accordance with \u201ca 200-year tradition of keeping the military separate from political affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

A White House aide \u2013 a \u201c23 or 24-year-old,\u201d according to Mulvaney \u2013 who\u2019s tasked with managing Trump\u2019s moods is not likely to know such things. But a White House that\u2019s worthy of this country would intuitively understand that all Navy destroyers within the Seventh Fleet are created equal, even the one that bears the name McCain.<\/p>\n

At the senator\u2019s funeral last September, ex-President George W. Bush said, \u201cJohn detested the abuse of power\u2026 John\u2019s voice will always come as a whisper over our shoulder: We are better than this. America is better than this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only if we can prove it in 2020.<\/p>\n

Dick Polman is the national political columnist at WHYY in Philadelphia and a \u201cWriter in Residence\u201d at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The quintessential Ugly American arrived in England on Monday, where it didn\u2019t take long for him to hurl insults at London\u2019s mayor. But presumably his mood will be lightened by the absence of any American vessels bearing the name John McCain. The Pentagon confirmed that a Trump flunky in the White House ordered the Navy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1311003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-09 18:20:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1311003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311003\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1311003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1311003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1311003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}