As the trial process begins for Private First Class Bradley Manning, charged with violations of three articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the blatant ignorance of the media with respect to courts-martial is becoming evident. Those useful kidiots who are seeking to make him a hero or a martyr are misrepresenting the nature of modern military justice. For instance, in a POLITICO article written by Josh Gerstein, he butchered the facts about military law and procedure, seemingly to make a point against the system. PFC Manning is alleged to be the Wikileaks source of hundreds of thousands of pages of classified documents. His case is currently before an investigating officer appointed pursuant to Article 32, Uniform Code of Military Justice.
To understand the system, let's start with the basics.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice. The UCMJ is federal law, enacted by the Congress and signed into law by the President. Under Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, "The Congress shall have Power . . . To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval forces." The Code is comprised of some 144 articles which are codified under Title 10 of the United States Code at sections 801 to 941. (There are several amendments which added articles and were numbered as Article XXXa.) Included are the “punitive articles” (Arts 77 through 134) which define crimes under the Code. The others are definitional or procedural articles.
The UCMJ was enacted in 1950 as a single (uniform) body of criminal and procedural law for all of the uniformed services. Prior to 1950, there were two separate bodies of such law: the Articles of War (applicable to the Army, Air Force, and, when operating with the Army, the Marine Corps) and the Articles for the Government of the Navy (known lovingly as the “Rocks and Shoals,” i.e., something to be steered clear of).
The UCMJ was an extensive re-writing of prior military and naval law, meant to address, in part, perceived unfairness of the old systems as discovered when it was applied to a 12 million man citizen army during World War II. Two additions are particularly interesting.
Article 31 provided protection against self-incrimination and requiring a warning of that right before anyone suspected of an offense was questioned, presaging Miranda v. Arizona by over a decade. In fact, Miranda still does not come into force until a person is in custody, so Article 31 is actually broader than Miranda.
Article 32 provided a right that had been denied the Armed Forces since the adoption of the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment provides, in part, “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger. . ..” (Emphasis added.)Prior to the enactment of the UCMJ, charges could go to trial simply upon the oath of the accuser.
Article 32 requires that before a charge is sent to trial by General Court-Martial, the officer exercising general court-martial convening authority must first convene an investigation to determine whether or not there is probable cause to believe that (1) an offense under the UCMJ has been committed and (2) the accused committed it. The investigating officer is appointed by the GCM convening authority and need not be a lawyer
Courts-Martial. Courts-martial are as old as armies. The need for discipline meant that the crimes that were committed by soldiers, especially uniquely military offenses, mandated a system that could be employed at sea and in the field. Some things are crimes in the military that are not in civilian life. If a person comes to work late while working for General Mills, General Motors or General Electric, he cannot be sent to jail. If he works for General Petraeus, the stockade may be waiting.
Courts-martial are not standing courts. Each time charges are referred to trial by a convening authority, discussed below, a new court comes into existence and is authorized to adjudicate only the charges and the accused (defendant)named in the convening order. The convening order names the military judge, the trial and defense counsel, and the members of the court.
There are three types of courts-martial.
The Summary Court-Martial is a one-officer court. He is rarely a lawyer and acts as both prosecutor and defense counsel. A summary court can try only enlisted personnel and the maximum sentence imposable is limited to 30 days confinement, forfeiture of two thirds pay for one month, and reduction in one pay grade.
The Special Court-Martial is comprised of a Military Judge, not less than three members of the court who determine guilt or innocence, and if guilty, the sentence, and in practice, a trial counsel and a defense counsel. A special court-martial can impose a maximum sentence of confinement for one year, forfeiture of two thirds pay for one year, and a bad conduct discharge.
The General Court-Martial is comprised of a Military Judge, not less than five members of the court who determine guilt or innocence, and if guilty, the sentence, and in practice, a trial counsel and a defense counsel. A general court-martial can impose a maximum sentence of death, if allowed by law, confinement for life, and forfeiture of all pay and allowances, or any lesser permissible sentence.
Until 1968, the court-martial was quasi-judicial. Every commissioned officer received extensive training in military law and, thereafter, was deemed qualified to serve as a prosecutor (trial counsel) or defense counsel in trials by Special Court-Martial, the maximum sentence imposable then being forfeiture of two thirds pay for six months, confinement at hard labor for six months, reduction to the lowest enlisted pay grade, and a bad conduct discharge (“six, six, and a kick”). Three commissioned officers, none of whom had to be a lawyer, comprised the court, and the president of the court, the senior of the three, ruled on objections and motions.
General Courts-Martial used judge advocates as defense counsel, trial counsel, and the “law officer” who advised the members of the court on the law. However, the president still made the final rulings on matters of law.
The 1968 amendments provided that accused in most special and all general courts-martial had a right to lawyer counsel. A judge advocate would be detailed as defense counsel, and the accused could, if he wanted, retain civilian defense counsel. The trial counsel in a special court could still be any officer, but in practice, was also a judge advocate. Most importantly, the amendment also created the “military judge,” a judge advocate who had been certified by the Judge Advocate General of his service as qualified to serve as a judge and who had been specially sworn to act in that capacity.
A judge advocate is an officer who is a member of the bar of the highest court of some state and who has received special training in military law. Upon completion of that training, he is designated a judge advocate by the Judge Advocate General of his service and is specially sworn as a trial and defense counsel. In other words, contrary to some folks’ belief, a military lawyer is, indeed, a lawyer.
The other two principal actors in the military justice system are the convening authority and the staff judge advocate.
Convening Authority. The convening authority is a commanding officer or other person who, by service regulation, is authorized to convene a court-martial. Almost always a commanding officer, the convening authority is limited by regulation to the level court he may convene. In the Marine Corps, for instance, only a battalion commander (usually a lieutenant colonel) may convene summary and special courts-martial. Commanding Generals are usually the convening authority for general courts-martial.
In former practice, the convening authority had great leeway in determining the personnel of the court, but in modern practice, the military judge is appointed and made available by the regional judiciary activity, the trial counsel is designated by the staff judge advocate or local legal support activity, and the defense counsel is appointed and made available by the regional defense activity. The convening authority is still allowed to select the members of the court, subject to the standards set forth in the UCMJ.
Unlike in civilian criminal law, their is no such thing as prosecutorial discretion. Unlike distict attorneys and United States attorneys, the lawyers do not decide what cases go to trial--that is a command function exercised by a convening authority. Plea bargains must be approved by the convening authority, and he alone may limit the sentencing authority of the court.
After trial, the convening authority must take action on the record of trial. The most frequent actions taken are to approve the findings and sentence imposed, but he may, in his sole discretion,reverse any findings of guilty and may decrease any sentence imposed. Obviously, he cannot reverse a finding of not guilty or increase the sentence.
Staff Judge Advocate. The SJA is the principal legal advisor to a Commanding General and, when directed to do so, also advises subordinate commanders in the chain of command. The SJA has significant responsibilities when it comes to general courts-martial.
After an Article 32 investigating officer submits his report and recommendations, the SJA must give written advice to the convening authority regarding each charge and specification. His advice must specifically affirm that (1) the specification alleges an offense under the UCMJ; (2) the specification is warranted by the evidence indicated in the report of Article 32 investigation; and (3) a court-martial would have jurisdiction over the accused and the offense. He must also recommend the action that the convening authority should take, i.e., return the charges to the officer exercising special court-martial jurisdiction, or refer to trial by general court-martial, or refer the charges to a GCM as capital (or non-capital).
The convening authority is not required to follow that advice, but if he disregards the advice, he does so at his peril.
16 December 2011
10 December 2011
GO NAVY! BEAT ARMY!
On paper, the only two college football teams playing today have losing records. The team from "Crabtown" is 4-7 and the team that often plays "outlined against a blue-gray October sky" is 3-8. Doesn't matter.
Tonight one team will celebrate a winning season while the other will have to endure another 365 days with the memory of the loss of a single game. Today is Army-Navy.
Navy now leads the all-time series with a record of 55 wins, 49 losses, and seven ties, but that is irrelevant, for both teams will come ready to play. Each year, this game is a new season in and of itself. Today is Army-Navy.
Among the arcane knowledge that each plebe must learn and spit out on command is “How many days until Army [Navy], Mister?” The calendar starts anew tonight because today is Army-Navy.
The seniors will not be going to the NFL—they’ll go to a much tougher league where the opponents play by no rules and play for keeps. Some may be gone from this earth before the next Army-Navy game, adding their names to hallowed lists at West Point and Annapolis.
How important is this game? One morning as we stood at a morning Colors formation, the band ended with the ceremonial playing of Anchors Aweigh, followed by the Hymn. I was standing next to a Major who is an Annapolis graduate. As the band played Anchors Aweigh, Eddie, whispered to me, “I was 31 years old before I learned that the last words to that song are not ‘Beat Army.’”
How important to the Nation is the Game? Read this.
This morning they are comrades in arms. This afternoon, they will play their respective hearts out against each other . . .and then stand at attention for their own and their opponent’s alma mater. And each member of the team will know and sing his school’s song—how many players on other college teams can do that? And tonight they will once again be members of a bigger team. God bless ‘em all.
When he was Superintendent of the Military Academy, General Douglas MacArthur said of this game, “On this field of friendly strife is sown the seeds that on other days and other fields will bear the fruits of victory.”
SO, Gerry Owen, Army. Get up and get moving. Follow me.
Don’t give up the ship, Navy. Semper Fi.
Oh, yeah….GO NAVY! BEAT ARMY!
Tonight one team will celebrate a winning season while the other will have to endure another 365 days with the memory of the loss of a single game. Today is Army-Navy.
Navy now leads the all-time series with a record of 55 wins, 49 losses, and seven ties, but that is irrelevant, for both teams will come ready to play. Each year, this game is a new season in and of itself. Today is Army-Navy.
Among the arcane knowledge that each plebe must learn and spit out on command is “How many days until Army [Navy], Mister?” The calendar starts anew tonight because today is Army-Navy.
The seniors will not be going to the NFL—they’ll go to a much tougher league where the opponents play by no rules and play for keeps. Some may be gone from this earth before the next Army-Navy game, adding their names to hallowed lists at West Point and Annapolis.
How important is this game? One morning as we stood at a morning Colors formation, the band ended with the ceremonial playing of Anchors Aweigh, followed by the Hymn. I was standing next to a Major who is an Annapolis graduate. As the band played Anchors Aweigh, Eddie, whispered to me, “I was 31 years old before I learned that the last words to that song are not ‘Beat Army.’”
How important to the Nation is the Game? Read this.
This morning they are comrades in arms. This afternoon, they will play their respective hearts out against each other . . .and then stand at attention for their own and their opponent’s alma mater. And each member of the team will know and sing his school’s song—how many players on other college teams can do that? And tonight they will once again be members of a bigger team. God bless ‘em all.
When he was Superintendent of the Military Academy, General Douglas MacArthur said of this game, “On this field of friendly strife is sown the seeds that on other days and other fields will bear the fruits of victory.”
SO, Gerry Owen, Army. Get up and get moving. Follow me.
Don’t give up the ship, Navy. Semper Fi.
Oh, yeah….GO NAVY! BEAT ARMY!
02 December 2011
LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND STATISTICS REDUX
Oh, the 2012 campaign has started and, once again, the Department of Labor is doing its part for the President.
DOL announced today that in November, the unemployment rate had plummeted 4 tenths of a percent to 8.6%. Just what the President needed in order to bolster his flagging performance. There was a footnote, however, that was overlooked by his hypesters:
To get to there, DOL counted 100,000 new hires (just in advance of the Christmas holiday shopping season; I wonder how long they will remain employed?) and stopped counting over 300,000 folks who have been unemployed for so long that DOL figures that they have stopped looking for work. I repeat: 300,000 unemployed people are no longer counted as unemployed because a bunch of accountants and statisticians say they no longer count.
In fact, DOL does not count 2.6 million persons who “were marginally attached to the labor force,” explaining that “[t]hese individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months, . . . ‘[but] were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.” (Emphasis added.)
So, for campaign purposes, the DOL report was good news for David Plouffe and Barack Obama. Not so good for the 300,000 and the 2.6 million, but what does that matter in the grand scheme of presidential politics?.
I have long proposed that the Department of Education is unnecessary, is a federal usurpation of what is a local responsibility, and ought to be closed, along with Energy and another one that I cannot think of right now. I may be wrong. Maybe the President, his campaign staff, and their liaisons at Labor need to go back to school to learn how to count.
DOL announced today that in November, the unemployment rate had plummeted 4 tenths of a percent to 8.6%. Just what the President needed in order to bolster his flagging performance. There was a footnote, however, that was overlooked by his hypesters:
To get to there, DOL counted 100,000 new hires (just in advance of the Christmas holiday shopping season; I wonder how long they will remain employed?) and stopped counting over 300,000 folks who have been unemployed for so long that DOL figures that they have stopped looking for work. I repeat: 300,000 unemployed people are no longer counted as unemployed because a bunch of accountants and statisticians say they no longer count.
In fact, DOL does not count 2.6 million persons who “were marginally attached to the labor force,” explaining that “[t]hese individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months, . . . ‘[but] were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.” (Emphasis added.)
So, for campaign purposes, the DOL report was good news for David Plouffe and Barack Obama. Not so good for the 300,000 and the 2.6 million, but what does that matter in the grand scheme of presidential politics?.
I have long proposed that the Department of Education is unnecessary, is a federal usurpation of what is a local responsibility, and ought to be closed, along with Energy and another one that I cannot think of right now. I may be wrong. Maybe the President, his campaign staff, and their liaisons at Labor need to go back to school to learn how to count.
01 December 2011
LET ‘EM TALK
This is a post that has been percolating in my junk box mind for some time. I first considered it in November 2008 and then again last year when Scott Brown was elected to the United States Senate. Now, as we enter the run-up to the 2012 general election, the pundits and prognosticators are once again considering whether or not one of the two parties can garner a “filibuster-proof” Senate.
Contrary to the popular belief in certain elements of the Democrat Party, filibuster is not an idea conjured up by George W. Bush. The filibuster dates from at least as early as the Roman Senate. As anyone who has ever seen Mr. Smith Goes To Washington knows, the filibuster was an art form in the early 20th Century. In fact, some of the most effective users of the filibuster in the recent past have been Democrat senators.
In 1946, Southern senators (Democrats all) blocked a vote on a Democrat-proposed bill to establish a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee, an early version of what ultimately became the EEOC. The filibuster lasted weeks, and after a failed cloture vote, the bill was withdrawn even though there were sufficient votes to pass the bill itself.
In 1953, Senator Wayne Morse (I. Or.) set a record by filibustering for 22 hours and 26 minutes while protesting the Tidelands Oil legislation. Senator Strom Thurmond (D.SC) broke this record in 1957 by filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours and 18 minutes. The bill ultimately passed. One of the most notable filibusters of the 1960s occurred when southern Democrat senators attempted, unsuccessfully, to block the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by undertaking a filibuster that lasted for 75 hours, which included a 14 hour and 13 minute address by Senator Robert Byrd. The Senate ultimately invoked cloture and the bill passed.
The filibuster in the Senate actually came about as a result of a rules change in 1806. Prior to that, debate could be ended by any senator who made a motion "to move the previous question." Such a motion was not debatable, took precedence, and, if adopted by the body, led to an immediate vote on the pending matter. (For any Presbyterians out there, yes, there were two votes. The first on the motion to move the previous question and the second on the actual matter under debate. Just like in your most recent meeting of the presbytery.)
No substitute means of forcibly ending debate was adopted raising the possibility of filibuster. (Interestingly, the House rules also allowed for filibuster until 1842, when a permanent rule limiting the duration of debate was created. This occurred, in part, because of the growth in the size of the House as population grew and more States were added to the Union.)
As a result, a senator, or a group of senators may speak for as long as they wish and on any topic they choose, unless "three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn" (usually 60 out of 100 senators) brings debate to a close by invoking cloture under Senate Rule XXII. The procedure for "invoking cloture," or ending a filibuster, is as follows:
• A minimum of sixteen senators must sign a petition for cloture.
• The petition may be presented by interrupting another Senator's speech.
• The clerk reads the petition.
• The cloture petition is ignored for one full day during which the Senate is sitting. For example, if the petition is filed on Tuesday, it is ignored until Thursday.
• On the second calendar day during which the Senate sits after the presentation of the petition, after the Senate has been sitting for one hour, a "quorum call" is undertaken to ensure that a majority of the Senators are present.
• The President of the Senate or President pro tempore presents the petition.
• The Senate votes on the petition; three-fifths of the whole number of Senators (sixty when there are no vacancies) is the required majority; however, when cloture is invoked on a question of changing the rules of the Senate, two-thirds of the Senators voting (not necessarily two-thirds of all Senators) is the requisite majority. (This is commonly referred to in the news media as a "test vote" because if cloture is not passed, modern practice is to simply not bring the bill to the floor for debate.)
After cloture has been invoked, the debate is tightly condensed:
• No more than thirty hours of debate may occur.
• No Senator may speak for more than one hour.
• No amendments may be moved unless they were filed on the day in between the presentation of the petition and the actual cloture vote.
• All amendments must be relevant to the debate.
• Certain procedural motions are not permissible.
• The presiding officer gains additional power in controlling debate.
• No other matters may be considered (on that track) until the question upon which cloture was invoked is disposed of.
After civil rights filibusters in the 1960s, the Senate adopted a "two-track system.” Before the introduction of tracking, a filibuster would stop all Senate business. Tracking permits the majority leader – with unanimous consent or the agreement of the minority leader – to have more than one bill pending on the floor as unfinished business. Under the "two-track system", the Senate can designate specific periods during the day when each particular matter will be considered. This in and of itself limits the most significant effectiveness of the filibuster, i.e., bringing the Senate to a halt.
Nonetheless, the parties, especially the Democrats, seem to be terrorized by the prospect of a filibuster. As a result, since the 1970s, cloture has generally become a pre-emptive rather than an offensive weapon, i.e., being used in deciding whether to call up a bill rather than being used in the middle of debate. And that puzzles me.
Why are the parties so afraid of filibuster? With a couple of exceptions, they are not successful in blocking adoption of the proposed legislation. I can think of two reasons.
First, during a filibuster, more of the people may actually pay attention to what is going on in Washington. They may actually agree with the dissidents and may contact their senators with requests that they vote with the filibusterers. I am almost certain that that is why Harry Reid opted to bring the House version of Obama-care up for a procedural vote rather than allow a filibuster (which became possible when Scott Brown was elected to replace Ted Kennedy) that might have led to defections in his own caucus.
Second, both houses of the Congress have adopted such short work weeks—usually Tuesday through Thursday—that a filibuster would interfere with the more serious concerns of most members: going home to raise money for the next election. Who wants to sleep on a cot in the cloakroom when he or she could be adding to campaign coffers.
We as citizens ought be appalled. If a proposed bill is so important to the good of the Republic, the filibusterers will look silly. (I almost wrote “look like idiots.” The I remembered Mark Twains’ famous observation, “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”)
And if it is so bad for the Republic that only the ruling class wants it, the filibusterers may arouse public sentiment and actually get the voters to give appropriate direction to their elected senators.
So, forget this cowardly abridgement of the kind of free speech we really need. Let ‘em talk.
Contrary to the popular belief in certain elements of the Democrat Party, filibuster is not an idea conjured up by George W. Bush. The filibuster dates from at least as early as the Roman Senate. As anyone who has ever seen Mr. Smith Goes To Washington knows, the filibuster was an art form in the early 20th Century. In fact, some of the most effective users of the filibuster in the recent past have been Democrat senators.
In 1946, Southern senators (Democrats all) blocked a vote on a Democrat-proposed bill to establish a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee, an early version of what ultimately became the EEOC. The filibuster lasted weeks, and after a failed cloture vote, the bill was withdrawn even though there were sufficient votes to pass the bill itself.
In 1953, Senator Wayne Morse (I. Or.) set a record by filibustering for 22 hours and 26 minutes while protesting the Tidelands Oil legislation. Senator Strom Thurmond (D.SC) broke this record in 1957 by filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours and 18 minutes. The bill ultimately passed. One of the most notable filibusters of the 1960s occurred when southern Democrat senators attempted, unsuccessfully, to block the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by undertaking a filibuster that lasted for 75 hours, which included a 14 hour and 13 minute address by Senator Robert Byrd. The Senate ultimately invoked cloture and the bill passed.
The filibuster in the Senate actually came about as a result of a rules change in 1806. Prior to that, debate could be ended by any senator who made a motion "to move the previous question." Such a motion was not debatable, took precedence, and, if adopted by the body, led to an immediate vote on the pending matter. (For any Presbyterians out there, yes, there were two votes. The first on the motion to move the previous question and the second on the actual matter under debate. Just like in your most recent meeting of the presbytery.)
No substitute means of forcibly ending debate was adopted raising the possibility of filibuster. (Interestingly, the House rules also allowed for filibuster until 1842, when a permanent rule limiting the duration of debate was created. This occurred, in part, because of the growth in the size of the House as population grew and more States were added to the Union.)
As a result, a senator, or a group of senators may speak for as long as they wish and on any topic they choose, unless "three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn" (usually 60 out of 100 senators) brings debate to a close by invoking cloture under Senate Rule XXII. The procedure for "invoking cloture," or ending a filibuster, is as follows:
• A minimum of sixteen senators must sign a petition for cloture.
• The petition may be presented by interrupting another Senator's speech.
• The clerk reads the petition.
• The cloture petition is ignored for one full day during which the Senate is sitting. For example, if the petition is filed on Tuesday, it is ignored until Thursday.
• On the second calendar day during which the Senate sits after the presentation of the petition, after the Senate has been sitting for one hour, a "quorum call" is undertaken to ensure that a majority of the Senators are present.
• The President of the Senate or President pro tempore presents the petition.
• The Senate votes on the petition; three-fifths of the whole number of Senators (sixty when there are no vacancies) is the required majority; however, when cloture is invoked on a question of changing the rules of the Senate, two-thirds of the Senators voting (not necessarily two-thirds of all Senators) is the requisite majority. (This is commonly referred to in the news media as a "test vote" because if cloture is not passed, modern practice is to simply not bring the bill to the floor for debate.)
After cloture has been invoked, the debate is tightly condensed:
• No more than thirty hours of debate may occur.
• No Senator may speak for more than one hour.
• No amendments may be moved unless they were filed on the day in between the presentation of the petition and the actual cloture vote.
• All amendments must be relevant to the debate.
• Certain procedural motions are not permissible.
• The presiding officer gains additional power in controlling debate.
• No other matters may be considered (on that track) until the question upon which cloture was invoked is disposed of.
After civil rights filibusters in the 1960s, the Senate adopted a "two-track system.” Before the introduction of tracking, a filibuster would stop all Senate business. Tracking permits the majority leader – with unanimous consent or the agreement of the minority leader – to have more than one bill pending on the floor as unfinished business. Under the "two-track system", the Senate can designate specific periods during the day when each particular matter will be considered. This in and of itself limits the most significant effectiveness of the filibuster, i.e., bringing the Senate to a halt.
Nonetheless, the parties, especially the Democrats, seem to be terrorized by the prospect of a filibuster. As a result, since the 1970s, cloture has generally become a pre-emptive rather than an offensive weapon, i.e., being used in deciding whether to call up a bill rather than being used in the middle of debate. And that puzzles me.
Why are the parties so afraid of filibuster? With a couple of exceptions, they are not successful in blocking adoption of the proposed legislation. I can think of two reasons.
First, during a filibuster, more of the people may actually pay attention to what is going on in Washington. They may actually agree with the dissidents and may contact their senators with requests that they vote with the filibusterers. I am almost certain that that is why Harry Reid opted to bring the House version of Obama-care up for a procedural vote rather than allow a filibuster (which became possible when Scott Brown was elected to replace Ted Kennedy) that might have led to defections in his own caucus.
Second, both houses of the Congress have adopted such short work weeks—usually Tuesday through Thursday—that a filibuster would interfere with the more serious concerns of most members: going home to raise money for the next election. Who wants to sleep on a cot in the cloakroom when he or she could be adding to campaign coffers.
We as citizens ought be appalled. If a proposed bill is so important to the good of the Republic, the filibusterers will look silly. (I almost wrote “look like idiots.” The I remembered Mark Twains’ famous observation, “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”)
And if it is so bad for the Republic that only the ruling class wants it, the filibusterers may arouse public sentiment and actually get the voters to give appropriate direction to their elected senators.
So, forget this cowardly abridgement of the kind of free speech we really need. Let ‘em talk.
30 November 2011
NEWT GINGRICH FOR PRESIDENT
As one who has watched presidential elections since 1960, I have often muttered to myself, “Is this really the best we can do?” With the exception of Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, I have not been enamored of any candidate and have often regretted that there were no better options to vote for. (I was not old enough to vote for either John F. Kennedy or Barry Goldwater, but would have done so gladly. Kennedy because I was still under the sway of my beloved yellow dog Democrat Mother and Goldwater because he was right.)
After Nixon’s self-inflicted fall from grace, I was so angry with the system that I actually cast my vote in 1976 for Jimmy Carter, the single worst voting mistake I have made in my life. The man wanted written guarantees that no Iranians would be hurt before he would allow the failed rescue attempt in 1980, fer cryin’ out loud. My bad!
Over the years, I have wondered why Sam Nunn of Georgia, Scoop Jackson of Washington, and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut were not acceptable to lead the Democrats rather than George McGovern, Carter, or John Kerry (a particular despicable choice). The only time I ever felt any compassion for Kerry was in 2004 when my late brother told me that he would not vote for Kerry because “anyone stupid enough to fight in your (sic) war is not smart enough to be President.” (The sympathy for Kerry did not last long.)
On the Republican side, Jack Kemp, Pete Wilson, Paul Laxalt, and, until now, Newt Gingrich have been overlooked.
About 10 years or so ago, I happened on a class taught by then former-Congressman Gingrich which was running weekly on Saturday mornings on either C-SPAN or PBS. It was fascinating, and I began to read his books. Still, I lamented, this guy is too intelligent for the American electorate. He has actually thought through our national problems and has come up with pragmatic, responsible solutions.
This year, as it began to look as if the GOP had decided to settle for a pretty face and no spine, such as Mitt Romney or Rick Perry, I was unsettled at best. Why not Newt Gingrich?
And look what has happened! People are starting to listen, and when they do, they realize that Newt is speaking to them in words that make sense.
Oh, the naysayers will bring up a lot of irrelevant stuff in an attempt to derail this bid. He has had three wives. He can be a tough SOB to work for. He is a conservative.
He will never satisfy some people. If the American people had known about Jack Kennedy’s roving eye, perhaps Nixon would have been President in 1960. I am not a big fan of divorce, but it happens to the best of couples. All I can say on that point is that the Democratic Party better not go after him after insisting for years that Bill Clinton’s extra-marital escapades were irrelevant to his ability to govern. At least Newt married ‘em, and they were all well beyond the age of consent.
A President needs to be demanding. I’d rather a President who demands excellence from his people and who knows and tells the people what he believes in and stands for. We’ve got the alternative now—one who stands for whatever his most important supporters demand. I mean why would labor support a guy who thinks 20,000 good jobs in red states are less important than satisfying a bunch of tree huggers in birkenstocks?
With Gingrich, we’ve got 30 years of writing and thinking about issues that are truly important and are legitimate federal concerns: national defense, economic policy, and foreign policy. Thirty years ago, the current President was still a student at Columbia, and until 2004, he had never had any relevant experience in federal government. Even today, he reminds me more of Richard J. Daley than of Lyndon B. Johnson.
Newt is a conservative, but one who is an actual intellectual and pragmatic conservative. Witness his immigration proposal. At least, he wants what is best for America and not just for the hyphenated group of the week that will give votes in exchange for bread and circuses.
Newt Gingrich for President.
PS. Let the “hrumphhh’s” begin, Sis. 8>)
After Nixon’s self-inflicted fall from grace, I was so angry with the system that I actually cast my vote in 1976 for Jimmy Carter, the single worst voting mistake I have made in my life. The man wanted written guarantees that no Iranians would be hurt before he would allow the failed rescue attempt in 1980, fer cryin’ out loud. My bad!
Over the years, I have wondered why Sam Nunn of Georgia, Scoop Jackson of Washington, and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut were not acceptable to lead the Democrats rather than George McGovern, Carter, or John Kerry (a particular despicable choice). The only time I ever felt any compassion for Kerry was in 2004 when my late brother told me that he would not vote for Kerry because “anyone stupid enough to fight in your (sic) war is not smart enough to be President.” (The sympathy for Kerry did not last long.)
On the Republican side, Jack Kemp, Pete Wilson, Paul Laxalt, and, until now, Newt Gingrich have been overlooked.
About 10 years or so ago, I happened on a class taught by then former-Congressman Gingrich which was running weekly on Saturday mornings on either C-SPAN or PBS. It was fascinating, and I began to read his books. Still, I lamented, this guy is too intelligent for the American electorate. He has actually thought through our national problems and has come up with pragmatic, responsible solutions.
This year, as it began to look as if the GOP had decided to settle for a pretty face and no spine, such as Mitt Romney or Rick Perry, I was unsettled at best. Why not Newt Gingrich?
And look what has happened! People are starting to listen, and when they do, they realize that Newt is speaking to them in words that make sense.
Oh, the naysayers will bring up a lot of irrelevant stuff in an attempt to derail this bid. He has had three wives. He can be a tough SOB to work for. He is a conservative.
He will never satisfy some people. If the American people had known about Jack Kennedy’s roving eye, perhaps Nixon would have been President in 1960. I am not a big fan of divorce, but it happens to the best of couples. All I can say on that point is that the Democratic Party better not go after him after insisting for years that Bill Clinton’s extra-marital escapades were irrelevant to his ability to govern. At least Newt married ‘em, and they were all well beyond the age of consent.
A President needs to be demanding. I’d rather a President who demands excellence from his people and who knows and tells the people what he believes in and stands for. We’ve got the alternative now—one who stands for whatever his most important supporters demand. I mean why would labor support a guy who thinks 20,000 good jobs in red states are less important than satisfying a bunch of tree huggers in birkenstocks?
With Gingrich, we’ve got 30 years of writing and thinking about issues that are truly important and are legitimate federal concerns: national defense, economic policy, and foreign policy. Thirty years ago, the current President was still a student at Columbia, and until 2004, he had never had any relevant experience in federal government. Even today, he reminds me more of Richard J. Daley than of Lyndon B. Johnson.
Newt is a conservative, but one who is an actual intellectual and pragmatic conservative. Witness his immigration proposal. At least, he wants what is best for America and not just for the hyphenated group of the week that will give votes in exchange for bread and circuses.
Newt Gingrich for President.
PS. Let the “hrumphhh’s” begin, Sis. 8>)
29 November 2011
LET THE GAMES CONTINUE
Three news items converge.
First, US News & World Report reports that the President has set a new record. One year out from the general election, his job approval rating plummeted below that of Jimmy Carter’s. Carter, described by the article as “considered among the 20th century's worst presidents,” was at 51 per cent at this point, and no President in the past 60 plus years has been at lower than that one year out—until now. The President didn’t just squeak by Carter, either. He blasted him out of the way as he plunged to a job approval rating of 43 per cent.
So, what’s a guy to do?
Well, his party is rushing to help by proposing to cut taxes, but only if they can raise them. It seems that the Senate will propose to enlarge and extend the payroll tax cut first passed at the President’s request last year. However, they insist that before they cut taxes, they must first be allowed to raise income taxes on a few people by way of a tax surcharge. Sort of a John Kerry “I was against it before I was for it” moment. The target? Milionaires and billionaires, of course.
And they know that that is a loser, even with some of their own caucus. And that grand bluffmaster, Harry Reid already concedes that he will probably have to drop the surtax to get passage. Harry, bubba, we really gotta review that negotiation tactics class.
Obama is desperate for a win on an issue that his left wing base rabidly wants. So we are condemned to hear more whining from Reid, Pelosi, and Obama.
And no one in the media is calling the President on this. According to Politico ”The payroll tax holiday extension has been a top priority for Obama, who has traveled the country in recent days to try to drum up public support for it. In Manchester, N.H., last week, he hit Republicans for opposing tax increases in general but supporting a payroll tax cut extension.” Really? Did he mention that he is in favor of cutting taxes so long as he can raise them? That line was probably cut from the speech before it went to the teleprompter.
The bottom line is this: the President is willing to work with the Congress, just so long as he gets exactly what he wants. He gets to claim a victory on cutting taxes for the middle class and the Republicans get to betray the people who elected them. Just like wrestling with a pig--everybody gets muddy and the pig loves it.
Here's an idea: If the payroll tax cut is really a top priority, and if the President wants compromise, why not just offer the tax cut?
As we used to say in the old Corps, "Nevah hatchee." If he did that, then his base will claim that he has abandoned their ardent desire for a class war.
And expect it to continue. A man who knows how to be a candidate, but not how to be President, will hit the road again tomorrow. Obama 2008 will just merge into Obama 2012 and continue the medicine show, complete with snake oil salesman-in-chief.
According to Jay Carney, the Press Secretary, in today's briefing the American people expect the President to be constantly on the road visiting them. When asked why only battleground states were being targeted, and whether or not these are really campaign stops being financed by the American people, Carney suggested that the President has a duty to get out of the office and visit the people. Any help to the campaign is just a secondary blessing, I suppose.
I would suggest that what they really need is someone who leads. Heaven knows, I’m no fan of LBJ, but before the debt limit debacle last summer, he would have had the Speaker and Harry Reid in for drinks, threats, and a little wood shedding! For both of them! For all of his ills, he knew how to be President.
But the current White House is oblivious. So, get your popcorn, settle back in your seats, and watch the next round in this farce.
First, US News & World Report reports that the President has set a new record. One year out from the general election, his job approval rating plummeted below that of Jimmy Carter’s. Carter, described by the article as “considered among the 20th century's worst presidents,” was at 51 per cent at this point, and no President in the past 60 plus years has been at lower than that one year out—until now. The President didn’t just squeak by Carter, either. He blasted him out of the way as he plunged to a job approval rating of 43 per cent.
So, what’s a guy to do?
Well, his party is rushing to help by proposing to cut taxes, but only if they can raise them. It seems that the Senate will propose to enlarge and extend the payroll tax cut first passed at the President’s request last year. However, they insist that before they cut taxes, they must first be allowed to raise income taxes on a few people by way of a tax surcharge. Sort of a John Kerry “I was against it before I was for it” moment. The target? Milionaires and billionaires, of course.
And they know that that is a loser, even with some of their own caucus. And that grand bluffmaster, Harry Reid already concedes that he will probably have to drop the surtax to get passage. Harry, bubba, we really gotta review that negotiation tactics class.
Obama is desperate for a win on an issue that his left wing base rabidly wants. So we are condemned to hear more whining from Reid, Pelosi, and Obama.
And no one in the media is calling the President on this. According to Politico ”The payroll tax holiday extension has been a top priority for Obama, who has traveled the country in recent days to try to drum up public support for it. In Manchester, N.H., last week, he hit Republicans for opposing tax increases in general but supporting a payroll tax cut extension.” Really? Did he mention that he is in favor of cutting taxes so long as he can raise them? That line was probably cut from the speech before it went to the teleprompter.
The bottom line is this: the President is willing to work with the Congress, just so long as he gets exactly what he wants. He gets to claim a victory on cutting taxes for the middle class and the Republicans get to betray the people who elected them. Just like wrestling with a pig--everybody gets muddy and the pig loves it.
Here's an idea: If the payroll tax cut is really a top priority, and if the President wants compromise, why not just offer the tax cut?
As we used to say in the old Corps, "Nevah hatchee." If he did that, then his base will claim that he has abandoned their ardent desire for a class war.
And expect it to continue. A man who knows how to be a candidate, but not how to be President, will hit the road again tomorrow. Obama 2008 will just merge into Obama 2012 and continue the medicine show, complete with snake oil salesman-in-chief.
According to Jay Carney, the Press Secretary, in today's briefing the American people expect the President to be constantly on the road visiting them. When asked why only battleground states were being targeted, and whether or not these are really campaign stops being financed by the American people, Carney suggested that the President has a duty to get out of the office and visit the people. Any help to the campaign is just a secondary blessing, I suppose.
I would suggest that what they really need is someone who leads. Heaven knows, I’m no fan of LBJ, but before the debt limit debacle last summer, he would have had the Speaker and Harry Reid in for drinks, threats, and a little wood shedding! For both of them! For all of his ills, he knew how to be President.
But the current White House is oblivious. So, get your popcorn, settle back in your seats, and watch the next round in this farce.
11 November 2011
VETERANS DAY 2011
Today marks the 93d anniversary of the armistice which ended the fighting on the Western Front in the World War. It took effect at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918. Within a few years, November 11 became an American national holiday known as Armistice Day. After we had to start numbering world wars, in 1954, Congress renamed Armistice Day to Veterans Day. While Veterans Day is, and ought to be, marked by solemn ceremonies such as the laying of a wreath by the President at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery, it is a day to honor living veterans who may be appropriately wished "happy Veterans Day." This contrasts with Memorial Day which honors those who died on the field of honor and, by definition, ought never be a "happy" day.
10 November 2011
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARINES
Today is the 236th Birthday of the finest fighting force the world has ever known, with the possible exception of the XIII Legion in Gaul and Jackson's Brigade in the Valley. I speak of course, of the United States Marine Corps.
I was privileged to lead Marines in combat as a platoon commander and executive officer of Company C, First Battalion, Fifth Marines. Charlie Company was the successor to John Thomason's company of the Fifth Marines in Belleau Woods in France in 1918.
The Marines and Corpsmen of Charlie Company are always with me, especially Lucas, Zimmerman, Tews, Unfried, Phipps, Wandro and, of course, Chip--2d Lt Fred Andrew Hartman, USMC. Tonight, at sunset, I stood on my deck "at sunset and was silent, over Chilean wine, . . . thinking of those days and those men."
Semper Fidelis
MARINE CORPS ORDERS
No. 47 (Series 1921)
HEADQUARTERS U.S. MARINE CORPS
Washington, November 1, 1921
759. The following will be read to the command on the 10th of November, 1921, and hereafter on the 10th of November of every year. Should the order not be received by the 10th of November, 1921, it will be read upon receipt.
(1) On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a resolution of Continental Congress. Since that date many thousand men have borne the name "Marine". In memory of them it is fitting that we who are Marines should commemorate the birthday of our corps by calling to mind the glories of its long and illustrious history.
(2) The record of our corps is one which will bear comparison with that of the most famous military organizations in the world's history. During 90 of the 146 years of its existence the Marine Corps has been in action against the Nation's foes. From the Battle of Trenton to the Argonne, Marines have won foremost honors in war, and in the long eras of tranquility at home, generation after generation of Marines have grown gray in war in both hemispheres and in every corner of the seven seas, that our country and its citizens might enjoy peace and security.
(3) In every battle and skirmish since the birth of our corps, Marines have acquitted themselves with the greatest distinction, winning new honors on each occasion until the term "Marine" has come to signify all that is highest in military efficiency and soldierly virtue.
(4) This high name of distinction and soldierly repute we who are Marines today have received from those who preceded us in the corps. With it we have also received from them the eternal spirit which has animated our corps from generation to generation and has been the distinguishing mark of the Marines in every age. So long as that spirit continues to flourish Marines will be found equal to every emergency in the future as they have been in the past, and the men of our Nation will regard us as worthy successors to the long line of illustrious men who have served as "Soldiers of the Sea" since the founding of the Corps.
JOHN A. LEJEUNE,
Major General Commandant
The Leathernecks by Col John Thomason (Fix Bayonets!)
LEATHERNECKS
THEY tell the tale of an American lady of notable good works, much esteemed by the French, who, at the end of June, 1918, visited one of the field hospitals behind Degoutte’s Sixth French Army. Degoutte was fighting on the face of the Marne salient, and the 2d American Division, then in action around the Bois de Belleau, northeast of Chateau Thierry, was under his orders. It happened that occasional casualties of the Marine Brigade of the 2d American Division, wounded toward the flank where Degoutte’s own horizon-blue infantry joined on, were picked up by French stretcher-bearers and evacuated to French hospitals. And this lady, looking down a long, crowded ward, saw on a pillow a face unlike the fiercely whiskered Gallic heads there displayed in rows. She went to it.
“Oh,” she said, “surely you are an American!”
“No, ma’am,” the casualty answered. I’m a Marine.”
The men who marched up the Paris-Metz road to meet the Boche in the spring of 1918, the 5th and 6th Regiments of United States Marines, were gathered from various places. In the big war companies, 250 strong, you could find every sort of man, from every sort of calling. There were North-westerners with straw-colored hair that looked white against their tanned skins, and delicately spoken chaps with the stamp of the Eastern universities on them. There were large-boned fellows from Pacific-coast lumber camps, and tall, lean Southerners who swore amazingly in gentle drawling voices. There were husky farmers from the corn-belt, and youngsters who had sprung, as it were, to arms from the necktie counter. And there were also a number of diverse people who ran curiously to type, with drilled shoulders and a bone-deep sunburn, and a tolerant scorn of nearly everything on earth. Their speech was flavored with navy words, and words culled from all the folk who live on the seas and the ports where our war-ships go. In easy hours their talk ran from the Tartar Wall beyond Peking to the Southern Islands down under Manila; from Portsmouth Navy Yard-New Hampshire and very cold-to obscure bush-whackings in the West Indies, where Cacao chiefs whimsically sanguinary, barefoot generals, with names like Charlemagne and Christophe, waged war according to the precepts of the French Revolution and the Cult of the Snake. They drank the eau de vie of Haute-Marne, and reminisced on sake, and vino, and Bacardi Rum-strange drinks in strange cantinas at the far ends of the earth; and they spoke fondly of Milwaukee beer. Rifles were high and holy things to them, and they knew five-inch broadside guns. They talked patronizingly of the war, and were concerned about rations. They were the Leathernecks, the Old Timers; collected from ship’s guards and shore stations all over the earth to form the 4th Brigade of Marines, the two rifle regiments detached from the Department of the Navy by order of the President for service with the American Expeditionary Forces. They were the old breed of American regular, regarding the service as home and war as an occupation; and they transmitted their temper and character and view-point to the high-hearted volunteer mass which filled the ranks of the Marine Brigade.
It is a pleasure to record that they found good company in the U. S. Army. The 2d Division (U. S. Regular was the official designation) was composed of the 9th and 23d Infantry, two old regiments with names from all of our wars on their battle-flags, the 2d Regiment of Engineers-and engineers are always good-and the 12th, 15th, and 17th Field Artillery. It was a division distinguished by the quality of dash and animated by an especial pride of service. It carried to a high degree esprit de corps, which some Frenchman has defined as esteeming your own corps and looking down on all the other corps. And although it paid heavily in casualties for the things it did-in five months about 100 per cent-the 2d Division never lost its professional character.
Seven years after, across the world from /France, I met a major of the American General Staff, who was on the Paris-Metz road that last week in May, 1918, and saw the Marine Brigade. “They looked fine, coming in there,” he said. “Tall fellows, healthy and fit-they looked hard and competent. We watched you going in, through those little tired Frenchmen, and we all felt better. We knew something was going to happen-“ and we were silent, over Chilean wine, in a place on the South Pacific, thinking of those days and those men.
There is no sight in all the pageant of war like young, trained men going up to battle. The columns look solid and businesslike. Each battalion is an entity, 1,200 men of one purpose. They go on like a river that flows very deep and strong. Uniforms are drab these days, but there are points of light on the helmets and the bayonets, and light in the quick, steady eyes and the brown young faces, greatly daring. There is no singing-veterans know, and they do not sing much-and there is no excitement at all; they are schooled crafts-men going up to impose their will, with the tools of their trade, on another lot of fellows; and there is nothing to make a fuss about. Battlefields are not salubrious places, and every file knows that a great many more are going in than will come out again-but that goes along with the job. And they have no illusions about the job.
There is nothing particularly glorious about sweaty fellows, laden with killing tools, going along to fight. And yet-such a column represents a great deal more than 28,000 individuals mustered into a division. All that is behind those men is in that column too: the old battles, long forgotten, that secured our nation-Brandywine and Trenton and Yorktown, San Jacinto and Chapultepec, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Antietam, El Caney; scores of skirmishes, far off, such as the Marines have nearly every year in which a man can be killed as dead as ever a chap in the Argonne; traditions of things endured and things accomplished, such as regiments hand down forever; and the faith of men and the love of women; and that abstract thing called patriotism, which I never heard combat soldiers mention-all this passes into the forward zone, to the point of contact, where war is girt with horrors. Common men endure these horrors and overcome them, along with the insistent yearnings of the belly and the reasonable promptings of fear; and in this, I think, is glory.
I was privileged to lead Marines in combat as a platoon commander and executive officer of Company C, First Battalion, Fifth Marines. Charlie Company was the successor to John Thomason's company of the Fifth Marines in Belleau Woods in France in 1918.
The Marines and Corpsmen of Charlie Company are always with me, especially Lucas, Zimmerman, Tews, Unfried, Phipps, Wandro and, of course, Chip--2d Lt Fred Andrew Hartman, USMC. Tonight, at sunset, I stood on my deck "at sunset and was silent, over Chilean wine, . . . thinking of those days and those men."
Semper Fidelis
MARINE CORPS ORDERS
No. 47 (Series 1921)
HEADQUARTERS U.S. MARINE CORPS
Washington, November 1, 1921
759. The following will be read to the command on the 10th of November, 1921, and hereafter on the 10th of November of every year. Should the order not be received by the 10th of November, 1921, it will be read upon receipt.
(1) On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a resolution of Continental Congress. Since that date many thousand men have borne the name "Marine". In memory of them it is fitting that we who are Marines should commemorate the birthday of our corps by calling to mind the glories of its long and illustrious history.
(2) The record of our corps is one which will bear comparison with that of the most famous military organizations in the world's history. During 90 of the 146 years of its existence the Marine Corps has been in action against the Nation's foes. From the Battle of Trenton to the Argonne, Marines have won foremost honors in war, and in the long eras of tranquility at home, generation after generation of Marines have grown gray in war in both hemispheres and in every corner of the seven seas, that our country and its citizens might enjoy peace and security.
(3) In every battle and skirmish since the birth of our corps, Marines have acquitted themselves with the greatest distinction, winning new honors on each occasion until the term "Marine" has come to signify all that is highest in military efficiency and soldierly virtue.
(4) This high name of distinction and soldierly repute we who are Marines today have received from those who preceded us in the corps. With it we have also received from them the eternal spirit which has animated our corps from generation to generation and has been the distinguishing mark of the Marines in every age. So long as that spirit continues to flourish Marines will be found equal to every emergency in the future as they have been in the past, and the men of our Nation will regard us as worthy successors to the long line of illustrious men who have served as "Soldiers of the Sea" since the founding of the Corps.
JOHN A. LEJEUNE,
Major General Commandant
The Leathernecks by Col John Thomason (Fix Bayonets!)
LEATHERNECKS
THEY tell the tale of an American lady of notable good works, much esteemed by the French, who, at the end of June, 1918, visited one of the field hospitals behind Degoutte’s Sixth French Army. Degoutte was fighting on the face of the Marne salient, and the 2d American Division, then in action around the Bois de Belleau, northeast of Chateau Thierry, was under his orders. It happened that occasional casualties of the Marine Brigade of the 2d American Division, wounded toward the flank where Degoutte’s own horizon-blue infantry joined on, were picked up by French stretcher-bearers and evacuated to French hospitals. And this lady, looking down a long, crowded ward, saw on a pillow a face unlike the fiercely whiskered Gallic heads there displayed in rows. She went to it.
“Oh,” she said, “surely you are an American!”
“No, ma’am,” the casualty answered. I’m a Marine.”
The men who marched up the Paris-Metz road to meet the Boche in the spring of 1918, the 5th and 6th Regiments of United States Marines, were gathered from various places. In the big war companies, 250 strong, you could find every sort of man, from every sort of calling. There were North-westerners with straw-colored hair that looked white against their tanned skins, and delicately spoken chaps with the stamp of the Eastern universities on them. There were large-boned fellows from Pacific-coast lumber camps, and tall, lean Southerners who swore amazingly in gentle drawling voices. There were husky farmers from the corn-belt, and youngsters who had sprung, as it were, to arms from the necktie counter. And there were also a number of diverse people who ran curiously to type, with drilled shoulders and a bone-deep sunburn, and a tolerant scorn of nearly everything on earth. Their speech was flavored with navy words, and words culled from all the folk who live on the seas and the ports where our war-ships go. In easy hours their talk ran from the Tartar Wall beyond Peking to the Southern Islands down under Manila; from Portsmouth Navy Yard-New Hampshire and very cold-to obscure bush-whackings in the West Indies, where Cacao chiefs whimsically sanguinary, barefoot generals, with names like Charlemagne and Christophe, waged war according to the precepts of the French Revolution and the Cult of the Snake. They drank the eau de vie of Haute-Marne, and reminisced on sake, and vino, and Bacardi Rum-strange drinks in strange cantinas at the far ends of the earth; and they spoke fondly of Milwaukee beer. Rifles were high and holy things to them, and they knew five-inch broadside guns. They talked patronizingly of the war, and were concerned about rations. They were the Leathernecks, the Old Timers; collected from ship’s guards and shore stations all over the earth to form the 4th Brigade of Marines, the two rifle regiments detached from the Department of the Navy by order of the President for service with the American Expeditionary Forces. They were the old breed of American regular, regarding the service as home and war as an occupation; and they transmitted their temper and character and view-point to the high-hearted volunteer mass which filled the ranks of the Marine Brigade.
It is a pleasure to record that they found good company in the U. S. Army. The 2d Division (U. S. Regular was the official designation) was composed of the 9th and 23d Infantry, two old regiments with names from all of our wars on their battle-flags, the 2d Regiment of Engineers-and engineers are always good-and the 12th, 15th, and 17th Field Artillery. It was a division distinguished by the quality of dash and animated by an especial pride of service. It carried to a high degree esprit de corps, which some Frenchman has defined as esteeming your own corps and looking down on all the other corps. And although it paid heavily in casualties for the things it did-in five months about 100 per cent-the 2d Division never lost its professional character.
Seven years after, across the world from /France, I met a major of the American General Staff, who was on the Paris-Metz road that last week in May, 1918, and saw the Marine Brigade. “They looked fine, coming in there,” he said. “Tall fellows, healthy and fit-they looked hard and competent. We watched you going in, through those little tired Frenchmen, and we all felt better. We knew something was going to happen-“ and we were silent, over Chilean wine, in a place on the South Pacific, thinking of those days and those men.
There is no sight in all the pageant of war like young, trained men going up to battle. The columns look solid and businesslike. Each battalion is an entity, 1,200 men of one purpose. They go on like a river that flows very deep and strong. Uniforms are drab these days, but there are points of light on the helmets and the bayonets, and light in the quick, steady eyes and the brown young faces, greatly daring. There is no singing-veterans know, and they do not sing much-and there is no excitement at all; they are schooled crafts-men going up to impose their will, with the tools of their trade, on another lot of fellows; and there is nothing to make a fuss about. Battlefields are not salubrious places, and every file knows that a great many more are going in than will come out again-but that goes along with the job. And they have no illusions about the job.
There is nothing particularly glorious about sweaty fellows, laden with killing tools, going along to fight. And yet-such a column represents a great deal more than 28,000 individuals mustered into a division. All that is behind those men is in that column too: the old battles, long forgotten, that secured our nation-Brandywine and Trenton and Yorktown, San Jacinto and Chapultepec, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Antietam, El Caney; scores of skirmishes, far off, such as the Marines have nearly every year in which a man can be killed as dead as ever a chap in the Argonne; traditions of things endured and things accomplished, such as regiments hand down forever; and the faith of men and the love of women; and that abstract thing called patriotism, which I never heard combat soldiers mention-all this passes into the forward zone, to the point of contact, where war is girt with horrors. Common men endure these horrors and overcome them, along with the insistent yearnings of the belly and the reasonable promptings of fear; and in this, I think, is glory.
07 November 2011
RICHARD NIXON, BILL CLINTON, AND HERMAN CAIN: A Short Study in Damage Control
This has been a bad week for the Cain campaign. They handled the report about some 1995 alleged sexual misconduct (of an unspecified nature, involving anonymous complainants) poorly, allowing the press and his opponents to speculate at will and interview each other, keeping the story alive. Yesterday, for instance, Christiane Amanpour asked former Secretary of State Rice a question to this effect: “Well, although we have no concrete information, assuming that there was some serious misconduct, is his candidacy over?” Yeah, he’s in trouble.
At least one report I heard revealed that the campaign had 10 days notice before the story broke. Why weren’t they prepared?
Instead, when it did break, in the space of one day, Cain denied the story, then “recalled” some of it, then more of it. He quibbled over whether there had been a “settlement” or “only an agreement” to pay one woman $35,000 and another $45,000 “severance packages.” By the end of the week, the “cover up” had become the story. No details of the events are available and the anonymous complainants refuse to speak publicly. A real mess!
This got me to thinking about how two other crises were handled by a presidential or campaign staff.
GENNIFER FLOWERS: During Bill Clinton's 1992 Presidential election campaign, it was revealed that Clinton and a model and actress named Gennifer Flowers engaged in a 12-year sexual relationship while Clinton was Governor of Arkansas. His team quickly arranged for Clinton to appear on the CBS news program 60 Minutes. Clinton denied having a relationship with Flowers, and his wife, now Secretary of State Clinton, “stood by her man.” The Flowers accusation was generally accepted by the voting public as a publicity stunt on Flower's part and Clinton avoided any serious threat to his campaign. (Clinton was deposed in January 1998, at which time he admitted that, indeed, he had a sexual encounter with Flowers, but by then he was already in his second term.)
WATERGATE: In June 1972, during Richard Nixon’s second campaign, a burglary was committed in the offices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC)headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Five men were apprehended in the DNC’s offices, apparently attempting to bug, or remove bugs from, the offices of DNC Chair Lawrence O’Brien and others. O’Brien, one of JFK’s “Irish mafia” of political advisors, was then serving his second term as DNC Chair.
It was later determined that the burglars had been paid from a to a slush fund maintained in the Committee to Re-Election the President (CREEP). Evidence developed by the FBI, soon pointed to the inside of the White House.
The Senate established a Committee, chaired by Senator Sam Ervin (D.NC) to investigate. Counsel for the committee included Sam Dash (majority counsel) and Fred Thomson (minority counsel. In the course of the hearing, it was revealed that President Nixon had a tape recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations. A conspiracy to cover up the break-in, between President Nixon and his two top aides, Robert Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, as well as other aides, was revealed by the tapes. Nixon resisted a Committee subpoena to turn over the tapes, resulting in a protracted series of court battles regarding the President’s claim of executive privilege. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled unanimously that the President had to comply with the subpoena. He resigned the presidency shortly thereafter.
WARNING: Shameless name-dropping follows.
Samuel Dash, the majority counsel of the Watergate Committee, was a legendary lawyer. In his 53-year legal career, he helped draft the independent counsel statute to correct the abuses of that system during the Watergate prosecution, served as ethics counsel to the Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, and was an expert on the law of electronic surveillance.
Mr. Dash joined the Philadelphia district attorney's office in 1952 and was appointed district attorney in 1955 at age 30. He went into private practice the next year and conducted a nationwide investigation of wiretapping, resulting in a 1959 book, "The Eavesdroppers," that is credited with helping change the Supreme Court's position and federal and state laws on electronic surveillance.
Beginning in 1965, he was a a professor at Georgetown University's law school where he also served as director of its Institute for Criminal Law and Procedures. In the 1970s, he helped Chief Justice Warren E. Burger devise the American Bar Association's ethical standards for prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers. He had a well-deserved reputation for independence and was an advocate for legal ethics throughout his career.
After a scandal arose in 2002, Mr. Dash served on a task force to reform the ethical standards and organization of the United Way of the National Capital Area.
In the 1990s, he was ethics counsel for a case I was involved in with respect to federal election law. One Saturday morning as we waited for a new draft of a pleading to be prepared, we sat in a conference room and talked about some of his experiences.
“You know, Professor,” I said, “if I had been advising the Nixon Whitehouse in June of 1972, I would have done two things. First, I would have advised the President to destroy all of those darned tapes that very day, before anyone knew they existed and before the inevitable subpoenae were issued when their existence was revealed. There would be no obstruction of justice (at least under 1972 law) because there was no order to preserve or produce them. I would have told the President, ‘You can’t be a party to unilateral electronic surveillance of people who come into your office expecting confidentiality. It sets a bad example. If you are ever questioned about why the tapes were destroyed, you can cite your concerns for the Bill of Rights.’”
“Well,” he replied, “you just ended our investigation.”
I continued. “‘Second,’ you need to fire anyone, including Haldeman and Ehrlichman, who might have had anything to do with the break-in. Then, call a press conference to announce right there the firings. Say something like this:
Professor Dash grinned and shook his head. “I’m glad you weren’t there,” he said. “The whole story thereafter would have been about an attempt to overturn the primary results by the old guard in the Democratic Party.”
I will never forget that conversation.
Fast forward to last week. Here is what I would have had Cain do as soon as the story broke—or preemptively, as soon as I heard that Politico was going to run it.
Background: In the last quarter of the 20th Century, sexual harassment in the workplace became an issue. Several high dollar claims were settled in the late 1980s and early 90s that made more employees aware of the “benefits” of alleging sexual harassment as a basis for dismissal. For instance, between 1997 and 2009, the EEOC dismissed roughly half of all harassment claims filed as “no reasonable cause” claims. In 2010, that percentage rose to nearly two-thirds.
In the 1990s, sexual harassment claims were popular with employees who were being terminated because the claim itself was damaging to a company and thus, the employee had a good bargaining chip. The spectre of bad publicity led many employers and their insurers to be more likely to settle claims early in the process for the “nuisance value” of the claim, i.e., the potential cost of investigation and defense of a suit dwarfed the settlement amount.
In Cain's case, the settlement amounts appear to me to be nuisance value settlements.
All that being said, I would have recommended that Cain say something like this.
At least one report I heard revealed that the campaign had 10 days notice before the story broke. Why weren’t they prepared?
Instead, when it did break, in the space of one day, Cain denied the story, then “recalled” some of it, then more of it. He quibbled over whether there had been a “settlement” or “only an agreement” to pay one woman $35,000 and another $45,000 “severance packages.” By the end of the week, the “cover up” had become the story. No details of the events are available and the anonymous complainants refuse to speak publicly. A real mess!
This got me to thinking about how two other crises were handled by a presidential or campaign staff.
GENNIFER FLOWERS: During Bill Clinton's 1992 Presidential election campaign, it was revealed that Clinton and a model and actress named Gennifer Flowers engaged in a 12-year sexual relationship while Clinton was Governor of Arkansas. His team quickly arranged for Clinton to appear on the CBS news program 60 Minutes. Clinton denied having a relationship with Flowers, and his wife, now Secretary of State Clinton, “stood by her man.” The Flowers accusation was generally accepted by the voting public as a publicity stunt on Flower's part and Clinton avoided any serious threat to his campaign. (Clinton was deposed in January 1998, at which time he admitted that, indeed, he had a sexual encounter with Flowers, but by then he was already in his second term.)
WATERGATE: In June 1972, during Richard Nixon’s second campaign, a burglary was committed in the offices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC)headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Five men were apprehended in the DNC’s offices, apparently attempting to bug, or remove bugs from, the offices of DNC Chair Lawrence O’Brien and others. O’Brien, one of JFK’s “Irish mafia” of political advisors, was then serving his second term as DNC Chair.
It was later determined that the burglars had been paid from a to a slush fund maintained in the Committee to Re-Election the President (CREEP). Evidence developed by the FBI, soon pointed to the inside of the White House.
The Senate established a Committee, chaired by Senator Sam Ervin (D.NC) to investigate. Counsel for the committee included Sam Dash (majority counsel) and Fred Thomson (minority counsel. In the course of the hearing, it was revealed that President Nixon had a tape recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations. A conspiracy to cover up the break-in, between President Nixon and his two top aides, Robert Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, as well as other aides, was revealed by the tapes. Nixon resisted a Committee subpoena to turn over the tapes, resulting in a protracted series of court battles regarding the President’s claim of executive privilege. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled unanimously that the President had to comply with the subpoena. He resigned the presidency shortly thereafter.
WARNING: Shameless name-dropping follows.
Samuel Dash, the majority counsel of the Watergate Committee, was a legendary lawyer. In his 53-year legal career, he helped draft the independent counsel statute to correct the abuses of that system during the Watergate prosecution, served as ethics counsel to the Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, and was an expert on the law of electronic surveillance.
Mr. Dash joined the Philadelphia district attorney's office in 1952 and was appointed district attorney in 1955 at age 30. He went into private practice the next year and conducted a nationwide investigation of wiretapping, resulting in a 1959 book, "The Eavesdroppers," that is credited with helping change the Supreme Court's position and federal and state laws on electronic surveillance.
Beginning in 1965, he was a a professor at Georgetown University's law school where he also served as director of its Institute for Criminal Law and Procedures. In the 1970s, he helped Chief Justice Warren E. Burger devise the American Bar Association's ethical standards for prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers. He had a well-deserved reputation for independence and was an advocate for legal ethics throughout his career.
After a scandal arose in 2002, Mr. Dash served on a task force to reform the ethical standards and organization of the United Way of the National Capital Area.
In the 1990s, he was ethics counsel for a case I was involved in with respect to federal election law. One Saturday morning as we waited for a new draft of a pleading to be prepared, we sat in a conference room and talked about some of his experiences.
“You know, Professor,” I said, “if I had been advising the Nixon Whitehouse in June of 1972, I would have done two things. First, I would have advised the President to destroy all of those darned tapes that very day, before anyone knew they existed and before the inevitable subpoenae were issued when their existence was revealed. There would be no obstruction of justice (at least under 1972 law) because there was no order to preserve or produce them. I would have told the President, ‘You can’t be a party to unilateral electronic surveillance of people who come into your office expecting confidentiality. It sets a bad example. If you are ever questioned about why the tapes were destroyed, you can cite your concerns for the Bill of Rights.’”
“Well,” he replied, “you just ended our investigation.”
I continued. “‘Second,’ you need to fire anyone, including Haldeman and Ehrlichman, who might have had anything to do with the break-in. Then, call a press conference to announce right there the firings. Say something like this:
My fellow Americans. One of the things about being president is that everyone wants to please you. If I were to mutter to myself at 2 am that I would like a strawberry baked Alaska, one would appear momentarily.
Now, a few weeks ago, I was talking with my staff about the upcoming election. As you know, after the primary elections, the Senator from South Dakota appears to be the presumptive nominee of the other party. I mused to myself, “I sure would like to be a fly on the wall of Larry O’Brien’s office right now to see how he and the rest of the old Kennedy hands plan to take the nomination away from Senator McGovern and give it to Teddy Kennedy.”
I now believe that those staffers—misguidedly and improperly—took my musing as an order. I have, sadly but necessarily, asked for their resignations and they have tendered them. It is now a matter for the police and the courts to resolve.
But I still do wonder how Mr. O’Brien plans to take the nomination from Mr. McGovern and give it to Mr. Kennedy.
Thank you and good night.
Professor Dash grinned and shook his head. “I’m glad you weren’t there,” he said. “The whole story thereafter would have been about an attempt to overturn the primary results by the old guard in the Democratic Party.”
I will never forget that conversation.
Fast forward to last week. Here is what I would have had Cain do as soon as the story broke—or preemptively, as soon as I heard that Politico was going to run it.
Background: In the last quarter of the 20th Century, sexual harassment in the workplace became an issue. Several high dollar claims were settled in the late 1980s and early 90s that made more employees aware of the “benefits” of alleging sexual harassment as a basis for dismissal. For instance, between 1997 and 2009, the EEOC dismissed roughly half of all harassment claims filed as “no reasonable cause” claims. In 2010, that percentage rose to nearly two-thirds.
In the 1990s, sexual harassment claims were popular with employees who were being terminated because the claim itself was damaging to a company and thus, the employee had a good bargaining chip. The spectre of bad publicity led many employers and their insurers to be more likely to settle claims early in the process for the “nuisance value” of the claim, i.e., the potential cost of investigation and defense of a suit dwarfed the settlement amount.
In Cain's case, the settlement amounts appear to me to be nuisance value settlements.
All that being said, I would have recommended that Cain say something like this.
In the mid-1990s, while I was CEO of the National Restaurant Association, I became aware that a couple of soon-to-be-dismissed employees were alleging that I had somehow improperly harassed them. While I deny that claim now and denied it then, I knew that the mere allegation was serious and could affect both the morale of the Association’s employees and the reputation of the Association itself.
I promptly recused myself from taking any further part in the matter, assigning it to the director of our human resources department and our general counsel.
I seem to recall that the claims were deemed to be of no substance, but to avoid any damage to the Association, it was decided by those responsible for making the decision (and perhaps our insurers) to “settle” the claims for the value of a few month’s salary for each of the terminated employees. In business, these low dollar settlements (each was around $40,000) are known as “nuisance value settlements.” That means that the company, association, or insurer thinks the claim is meritless, but the cost of investigating the claim and litigating it would far exceed the amount of the settlement.
I had no part in making any settlement decision, but, as an experienced businessman, I think that it is better to spend a few dollars to settle unfounded claims such as these rather than 10 or 20 times the amount to win a legal “victory.”
I do recall that when settling claims such as this, our counsel often suggested that the settlement amount be easily divisible by 3 so that the attorney’s one-third share of the claim could be easily determined.
The filing of unfounded suits or claims such as these, often as a revenue-generating action by trial lawyers, continues to be a real problem in American business. That is why I support tort reform and other reforms to cut the costs of such trivial litigation in American business and medicine, even as the trial lawyers seek more ways to make their fortunes on the backs of plaintiffs who have no real claim.
Thank you and good night.
30 October 2011
COL WILLIAM E. RILEY, USMC
I have just learned that Colonel William E. Riley, Jr., USMC reported to Marine Barracks, Heaven earlier this summer. Colonel Riley was my battalion commander in Vietnam about whom I have written here, here, here, here, and here.
The Colonel was a tremendous combat leader, having served in Korea as a lieutenant and then in Vietnam, as Commanding Officer, 1st Battalion, Fifth Marines, 1st Marine Division. It seemed to the junior officers of the battalion that he never forgot what it was like to be a small unit leader. He trusted his subordinates and it showed. He was one of those men who other men eagerly follow, no matter how unpleasant the trip might be. Acts such as the implicit trust he placed in a 19 year old squad leader to adjust a supporting arm that could have killed us all earned him our undying trust, respect, and devotion.
Semper Fidelis.
The Colonel was a tremendous combat leader, having served in Korea as a lieutenant and then in Vietnam, as Commanding Officer, 1st Battalion, Fifth Marines, 1st Marine Division. It seemed to the junior officers of the battalion that he never forgot what it was like to be a small unit leader. He trusted his subordinates and it showed. He was one of those men who other men eagerly follow, no matter how unpleasant the trip might be. Acts such as the implicit trust he placed in a 19 year old squad leader to adjust a supporting arm that could have killed us all earned him our undying trust, respect, and devotion.
Semper Fidelis.
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