Wednesday, October 01, 2025

The Commander in Chief Is Not Okay

Trump put on a disturbing show for America's generals and admirals.

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In 1973, an Air Force nuclear-missile officer named Harold Hering asked a simple question during a training session: "How can I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a sane president?" The question cost him his career. Military members are trained to execute orders, not question them. But today, both the man who can order the use of nuclear arms and the man who would likely verify such an order gave disgraceful and unnerving performances in Quantico. How many officers left the room asking themselves Major Hering's question?

Comments

Nichols points out:

This farrago of fantasy, menace, and autocratic peacocking is the kind of thing that the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan evocatively called "boob bait for the Bubbas" and that George Orwell might have called "prolefeed." It's one thing to serve it up to an adoring MAGA crowd: They know that most of it is nonsense and only some of it is real. They find it entertaining, and they can take or leave as much of Trump's rhetorical junk-food buffet as they would like. It is another thing entirely to aim this kind of sludge at military officers, who are trained and acculturated to treat every word from the president with respect, and to regard his thoughts as policy.

But American officers have never had to contend with a president like Trump. Plenty of presidents behaved badly and suffered mental and emotional setbacks: John F. Kennedy cavorted with secretaries in the White House pool, Lyndon Johnson unleashed foul-mouthed tirades on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Nixon fell into depression and paranoia, Ronald Reagan and Joe Biden wrestled with the indignities of age. But the officer corps knew that presidents were basically normal men surrounded by other normal men and women, and that the American constitutional system would insulate the military from any mad orders that might emerge from the Oval Office.

Likewise, in Trump's first term, the president was surrounded by people who ensured that some of his nuttiest"and most dangerous"ideas were derailed before they could reach the military. Today, senior U.S. officers have to wonder who will shield them from the impulses of the person they just saw onstage. What are officers to make of Trump's accusation that other nations, only a year ago, supposedly called America "a dead country"? (After all, these men and women were leading troops last year.) How are they supposed to react when Trump slips the surly bonds of truth, insults their former commanders in chief, and talks about his close relationship with the Kremlin?

#1 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2025-10-01 05:04 AM

#1: Hi Doc Sarvis: Decades ago one of my assignments was at the JCS and the flag officers I observed or worked for, either Republican or Democratic, were sane, sober, and cool-headed. With all of the purges and 'pep talks,' Pete Hellsbreath and Dummkopf Trumpf want to populate the Dept of 'War' with USAF General Curtis "Let's Nuke the G--ks" LeMay clones. Sidenote: During WWII, George Wallace served as an NCO in a unit commanded by Curtis LeMay, his future 1968 VPOTUS pick.

One wonders if the Dotard-in-Chief and "Pickled Pete" watched this film recently: images01.military.com

#2 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-10-01 05:44 AM

Coriolanus, it's my understanding the last time a prez watched that film we ended up in Cambodia!

#3 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2025-10-01 05:54 AM

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), a combat veteran who lost her legs in Iraq, called for "the least qualified Defense Secretary in history" to immediately resign. She added that Dummkopf Trumpf's idea to use US cities as training grounds for the military is un-American. The risky event itself, which involved considerable expense for generals and admirals to travel from around the world, amounted to a "partisan diatribe" that wasted military commanders' time and taxpayer money, Duckworth emphsized: apnews.com

US national security certainly is in good hands: image.cagle.com

#4 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-10-01 05:56 AM

#3: Methinks you are correct, Doc Sarvis! res.cloudinary.com

BTW: Too bad Nixon didn't watch this 1970 war epic with Rod Steiger instead: 2.bp.blogspot.com

#5 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-10-01 06:02 AM

On 5 Nov 2024, Republican voters sank the US: preview.redd.it

#6 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-10-01 06:06 AM

Is Pickled Pete cool with troops emulating the boob at the top of the chain of command?
Slathered on pancake makeup, okay?
A hundred pounds, give or take, overweight, good to go?
Dyed combover hairdos per regulation?
Physical condition reflects dangerous diet, zero exercise, ready for action?
"Do as I say, not as we do."

#7 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2025-10-01 06:07 AM

achievement.org

#8 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-10-01 06:15 AM

Anyone who denies the obvious reality of Trump's insanity is, I don't know...Crazy themselves? Cynical beyond belief? An actual enemy of the United States?

Donald Trump isn't really the President of the United States. He's a shambling, largely mindless hulk, whom we pretend occupies that role.

The man hallucinates. He has delusions. He is frankly psychotic.

The end game here is millions and millions and millions of Americans hurt, many of us actually bleeding.

I'm going to tell some of you I told you so. Not that that will make anyone, including me, happier.

#9 | Posted by Zed at 2025-10-01 07:27 AM

All nations, if they survive long enough, wind up with an insane ruler.

It's our turn in the box.

To this point, we aren't dealing with it well.

#10 | Posted by Zed at 2025-10-01 08:48 AM

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