Greenwald: Constitution 'Orwellian'

Notorious sock-puppeteer Glenn Greenwald:

[I]f I could be granted one small political wish, it would be the permanent elimination of this widespread, execrable Orwellian fetish of reverently referring to the President as "our commander in chief." And Biden's formulation here is a particularly creepy rendition, since he's taunting opponents of Obama that, come Tuesday, they will be forced to refer to him as "our commander in chief Barack Obama" . . .
This is much more than a semantic irritant. It's a perversion of the Constitution, under which American civilians simply do not have a "commander in chief"; only those in the military -- when it's called into service -- have one (Art. II, Sec. 2).

Greenwald's semantic quibbling is over this:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States . . .

The president is Commander in Chief of the regular forces at all times. The "called into service" clause applies only to state militias. If Greenwald wants to be an originalist and eliminate the National Guard on states' rights grounds, let him so argue.

There is nothing objectionable or improper in Americans referring to the president as our Commander in Chief, any more than there is a problem with University of Alabama fans referring to Nick Saban as our coach. 'Bama fans understand that Saban is not coaching us, he is coaching our football team. Thus, the "our" in both constructions is an expression of identification. If you identify with the Crimson Tide, Saban is your coach; if you identify with the U.S. military, the president is your Commander in Chief.

What Greenwald is saying is that there is something bad -- something Orwellian and perverse -- in Americans identifying with the armed forces. To say that they are our Army, our Navy, our Marines -- our troops! -- that first-person plural possessive grates on Greenwald's nerves. He does not identify with the military, and doesn't want you to, either.

The fact that the Framers made the Commander in Chief role high on the list of the president's duties -- right after the clause describing the office's basic qualifications -- is no accident, of course, since they had in mind George Washington for the job. And if the federal government were limited to its proper constitutional duties, the maintenance of the nation's military establishment would actually occupy a larger share of the president's time, since the government wouldn't be meddling in health care, education, etc.

Notice, however, that Greenwald brings up the "Commander in Chief" objection right before the election, since referring to the president in that manner calls to the voter's attention the fact that Barack Obama has never served a day in uniform. Once upon a time, Democrats scoffed when Sarah Palin spoke of her job as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard, but that makes her a veritable Clausewitz next to Obama.

UPDATE: A commenter suggests Glenn Greenwald is a "libertarian," a suggestion that is freaking nuts. Greenwald is a gay radical who (like kindred spirit Andrew Sullivan) seized upon the Bush administration's war policies as a pretext, more than a reason, to denounce Bush.

"Any stick will do to hit a mad dog," folks say down home, and the Gay Left has been the most vehement enemies of the Bush administration from Day One. With the USA-PATRIOT Act and the invasion of Iraq, Bush gave the Gay Left issues that they've skillfully exploited, but you will search in vain to find where Greenwald denounced the Clinton administration's meddling in the Balkans.

Greenwald's hyperventilating Fourth Amendment screeds may employ superficially libertarian arguments, but he does not really care about privacy, he cares about getting the Republicans out of office so as to advance the gay agenda. Some of these "Obamacons" and useful idiots like Doug Kmiec will be shocked at how suddenly and emphatically President Obama pushes the radical gay-rights stance. Greenwald and Sullivan will not. Nor will I, since I actually attended the Democrats' LGBT Caucus in Denver, and still have the letter to the caucus in which Obama called them "crucial" to his success.