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Old 11-05-2019, 06:01   #4
tonyz
Area Commander
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 4,792
Yup. No doubt that the attacks on Trump can be documented prior to election. But Hanson, in this piece, focuses on the political activism practiced by the heads of intelligence agencies, the FBI and a number of retired high ranking officers. Culturally, and politically this is new ground. ”...the danger is that half the country will conclude that too many retired generals and admirals are going the way of past CIA and FBI directors—no longer just esteemed professionals, op-ed writers, and astute analysts, but political activists who feel entitled to challenge the very legitimacy of an elected president—a development that is ruinous both for the reputation of a hallowed military and of the country in general.”

More from the Hanson piece.

“In the past, when retired generals rarely and inappropriately weighed in on the allegedly improper, stupid, or immoral drift of a contemporary progressive president, they were met by a progressive firestorm as potential insurrectionaries. General Douglas MacArthur was roundly hated by the Left for his often boisterous and improper attacks on President Truman’s decision not to expand the war in Korea.

Again, today there has arisen a quite different—and far more dangerous—calculus in which the media canonizes rather than audits retired officers who compare the commander-in-chief to a fascist, declare him unfit, or dream of his “sooner the better” removal.

Had any of the current generals said anything similar about President Obama in the fashion they now routinely attack Trump, their public careers would have been ruined. There would have been Adam Schiff-like progressive congressional inquiries about the current status of the code of military conduct as it pertains, not to quite legitimate political editorialization, but rather to “contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or the Governor or legislature of any State . . . ”

Attacking Trump in “contemptuous” fashion is not speaking truth to power but a confirmation of the existing status quo of the media, progressive orthodoxy, and the general Washington bipartisan bureaucracy.

The result is that many retired high-ranking officers have made the necessary adjustments. Many have gone well beyond legitimately articulating why Trump may be wrong on foreign policy, and now feel free to malign, insult, and even dream of removing their commander-in-chief, on the grounds that Trump is sui generis, that the media will applaud their efforts, and that the bipartisan foreign-policy establishment will canonize their deep-state bravery.

Perhaps.

But the danger is that half the country will conclude that too many retired generals and admirals are going the way of past CIA and FBI directors—no longer just esteemed professionals, op-ed writers, and astute analysts, but political activists who feel entitled to challenge the very legitimacy of an elected president—a development that is ruinous both for the reputation of a hallowed military and of the country in general.

So it is now the decision of many ex-intelligence heads and flag officers, as retirees, analysts, and businesspeople, to change the rules of the game. Again fine. But they will live to rue the ensuing harm to the reputations both of the intelligence services and the military at large.

Indeed, the damage is well underway.”

Pas, thanks for those links from the 2016 election as we approach 2020. All a reminder that Washington DC is a swamp filled with deep state obstructors, a media which operates as a propaganda arm for one major political party and now former high ranking military officers and former heads of intelligence agencies given voice as political activists. Interesting times.
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Last edited by tonyz; 11-05-2019 at 06:10.
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