It is being called “Semper Latte” and, if this is the biggest scandal that President Barack Obama has to worry about, his Administration is safe. Various people are denouncing the President for saluting his Marine guard while holding a cup of tea or coffee. From CNN to the Daily Mail to ABC to the New York Daily News to the Washington Post to the New York Post to NBC to CBS to countless others, the salute is generating heated comments across the country. YouTube clips show the salute over and over along with multiple postings expressing outrage. My reaction is a bit different. The President has launched another declared war that his aides say could last “years.” However, there seem more debate over this tempest in a tea [cup] than the fact that we are bombing another nation.
The President did not put his styrofoam cup in his other hand while stepping out of Marine One — a breach of military regulations and decorum. He appears to have forgotten the salute as he multitasked with his cup while buttoning his jacket.
What truly amazes me is that the White House released the photo. No one saw the problem and actually viewed the picture as worthy of sending out on the web.
However, it is the relative attention given the issue that is mystifying. Many irate people over the salute are less aggrieved by the war just commenced on the sole authority of this President. Just as there is an appropriate way to salute a Marine, there is an appropriate way to send a Marine to war. The Constitution is quite clear about starting wars and there is far more at stake. We should be at least as aggrieved when our Constitution is being disrespected or ignored as we are the Marine guard this week. Just a thought.
http://derosaworld.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c7c7d53ef0120a59e05df970c-250wi
And this is going to play over and over and over during the election cycle. This election is going to be a referendum on Obama’s policies. This will be the perfect poster for the GOP.
Didn’t Bill Murray do this in some movie? I was amazed that he pulled it off, I would have spilled on myself. Of course, in reality, I would have put the cup in the other hand and salute the guards.
It does show a disdain for the military who he is commanding.
We now have a new war, and Chinese chicken can be imported without labeling, but this is what’s important to some people. Okay then.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/14/opinion/a-senseless-salute.html
Soon after Ronald Reagan assumed his presidency, something new appeared with his image on the television screen. When given a salute by uniformed military personnel, Mr. Reagan would return it, shooting his right hand up to his bare head, his smile suggesting that this was something he liked to do. This unnecessary and unseemly habit was adopted by Mr. Reagan’s successors, including Bill Clinton and especially George W. Bush, who steps off his plane and cocks a jaunty salute.
This gesture is of course quite wrong: such a salute has always required the wearing of a uniform. But there is more to this than a decline in military manners. There is something puerile in the Reagan (and now Bush) salute. It is the joyful gesture of someone who likes playing soldier. It also represents an exaggeration of the president’s military role.
In the past, even presidents who had once been generals employed civilian manners. They chose not to emphasize their military achievements during their presidential tenure — in accord with the American tradition of the primacy of civilian over military rule. Of their constitutional prerogatives these men were of course aware. Lincoln would dismiss and appoint generals, and Truman knew that he had the right to fire MacArthur. During World War II, while Churchill often wore a uniform or at least a military cap, Roosevelt remained determinedly in his civilian clothes. Indeed, none of the presidents who governed this country during its great wars defined themselves as commanders in chief — not Washington, not Lincoln, not Wilson, not Roosevelt.
On Monday, a GI jumped the White House fence and found the front door unlocked. So did Obama forget to lock it?
UCMJ Article 89, Disrespect Toward a Superior Commissioned Officer:
Any behavior which is disrespectful to a superior commissioned officer may be punished by this article failure to salute can be interpreted as disrespect towards a commissioned officer.
Disagree. This discourtesy is symbolic of Pres. Obama’s lack of respect for American traditions – small and large.
Following the “broken windows” theory, small discourtesies such as these lead to larger issues, ultimately to making war without Congressional authority.
Ross,
Hush now, you know you’re going to offend some people that have political ambitions…. Scooter Libby got a fair trial, according to the government. He just couldn’t use classified documents in his defense….. It pained Cheney dearly as he couldn’t get bush to answer the phone to give him a full pardon…. Because Cheney knew where the leak came from, his own lips….
@ Lloyd
“You have a GOP House, after all, that goes on another 7 week vacation after just returning from a 6 week stint at the beach. They will have worked a total of eight days in the span of 102. ”
While I agree with you that it is disgraceful for Congress to be taking so much time off, especially when we have so many serious issues on the table…….Just where are the Democrats in your GOP house.???? If they wanted to….they could stay and continue to work as a clear sign that THEY are keeping busy. Think what a great PR stunt that would be!
The Democrats bugged out just as fast as the rest of the Congress anxious to go home and get re-elected.
Is Obama’s gaff worse than George W. Bush jokingly looking for WMDs under his desk in the oval office after U.S. troops lost life and limb looking for them?
This was after the Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson scandal where Wilson warned that they never existed in the way the Bushies were portraying it.
Don’t get much press coverage of that these days!
Conjecture about how Obama thinks about the military is as silly as complaint about the cup salute. Many in the military, which includes my daughter doesn’t give a rip about it unless they may hate him for the same reasons civilians may hate him. My daughter’s response to the cup salute? “Who cares?”
Less attention to the cup salute and more to the lazy duplicitous cowardly Congress who deserves a mention every single time the President gets criticized for overreach.
I agree with Professor Turley. We have much bigger problems than whether Obama gave a sloppy and disrespectful salute. Trampling all over the Constitution for one. Make up laws on the fly. Altering laws without going through the legal process. Refusing to execute the laws of the land.
Is the disrespectful and sloppy salute just one other indication of how low of an opinion Obama has for the Military and the rest of us who live in this country…..probably so as Ron said..
However, in the big scheme of things it is small potatoes and the media on all sides….are frothing to make this just another distraction to the real issues.
Here is an issue. Will the military, who feels slighted, disrespected and who feel they are held in contempt by the CIC go to war and fight with a will to win? Or will they just go through the motions and hope that the next Commander in Chief will actually have their backs in a war where they are going to be putting their lives at risk? I know what “I” would do.
Everyone should not be expected to follow protocol every time. I think he tried his best to manage coming off the aircraft and still salute. This is a one time event. It’s not as if he was performing a ceremony or something.
doglover, Maybe the President has taken us chewing tobacco and that was his spit cup?
Groty, I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!
Obama simply should have skipped the salute. But, as the post indicates, the world is melting down so WTF are we talking about this??
We need to hear from people who served, like Olly, Aridog and others. However, I spoke w/ a cousin who served for 25 years in the Army. He told me it is fine not to salute if it’s not practical. Having a cup in your hand makes it impractical. But, as I said yesterday, all reports from Secret Service are Obama and his family are genuinely nice to those who serve them and always respectful of their schedules and that they too have families to care go home to on time. So, he gets a pass on this from me.
It seems odd that anyone would carry a cup of anything off of a plane. Perhaps he was nauseous and was planning to conceal an expected expectoration.
Jonathan, it is the “salute” itself that is so indicative of this president’s regard for the Constitution. Disrespect for the decorum of a junior officer properly holding a salute and a senior officer properly returning that salute says something quite revealing about the man’s expectations of himself for the position he holds.
A proper do over of the scene would be for the Marine to hold his salute with his middle finger clasped around a beer can.