Commander in Chief

I watched the Republican debate last night and had plenty of thoughts that I won’t share here. But one thing that really stood out to me was the way in which they dodged military-related questions, both those having to do with “don’t ask, don’t tell” and items of foreign policy. Their most common refrain was “I would ask the generals.”

It was interesting watching them try to reconcile this approach with their own positions of what they wanted to happen. So one of them (Rick Santorum?) suggested that in relation to “don’t ask, don’t tell” he would have deferred to the “combat commanders,” that those officers rather than the top brass would have the appropriate opinion. Newt Gingrich suggested that the Army and Marines were the right group to consult on the policy. And Herman Cain, in responding to a question on Libya, said that he would first consult the “commanders on the ground” before deciding whether we should be involved.

Did you catch that? Not only did he not seem to understand what he don’t have commanders on the ground in Libya, but he managed to suggest that we needed commanders on the ground in order to decide whether we should have a military intervention. Which, of course, would require that we had already intervened.

What really bothered me about all of this, though, was the demonstration of immoderate politics. Their claims of deference to the military commanders placed partisanship (their desire to get in a jab at the president by implying that he was out of sync with the military) above their reaffirmation of constitutional order (in which the president is commander-in-chief, maintaining civilian control over the military branches). Suggesting that Obama’s foreign policy is wrong: totally within the limits of moderate politics. Suggesting that correct foreign policy and military affairs requires deference to the military: immoderate politics and an undermining of a clear constitutional imperative:

“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” (Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution).

Anyone looking for passionate moderate politics on foreign policy last night had to look to Ron Paul. In his response to a question about withdrawing troops from Afghanistan (in which his opponents had trotted out the deference-to-generals approach), Paul’s response went something like this: “I’m the commander-in-chief. I tell them what to do, and I’ll tell them to bring the troops home now.” Whether you agree with his decision or not, the process was right.