Having served under seven commanders in chief during his time in the Senate, Biden understands as well as anyone the pervasive fear in Congress that presidents are out only for themselves.That is somewhere in between sloppy work by the reporter, horrible editing by the editor and a thoroughly inadequate understanding of our system of government by all concerned.
Let's be clear on this: The President is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. (Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution.) Unless you are a member of the armed forces, he is not, repeat not your "commander-in-chief." If you are in the Guard and your unit has not been "federalized", your commander-in-chief is the governor of your state. If this president or the last one or the next one were to call me up on the phone and order me to do something, I have the complete freedom to say: "Go fuck yourself" and slam the phone down.
It would really help public discourse in this nation if we could disabuse the press of the notion that our president is our commander-in-chief.
He is most assuredly not.
He is not the boss of me. Or of you (unless you're in the armed forces).
2 comments:
"pervasive fear in Congress that presidents are out only for themselves."
Not this one.
Thanks for the reminder, comrade! Do turkey, no, let's rephrase that, are turkey vultures capable of, um, making a meal of spammers wivout help? The monks in Tibet break up hoominz into bits to help the vultures get them down, but I babble ...
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