Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R, AL) has made a mockery of the U.S. Senate’s role to advise and consent. He is single-handedly blocking the approval of the promotion of approximately 250 officers, including the appointment of the first woman to be superintendent of the Naval Academy.
A former college football coach, he left his common sense on the gridiron.
Tuberville is seeking deletion in the Defense Department funding bill of language granting commanding officers authority to provide transportation and leave for those seeking an abortion, particularly if they are based in a state that prohibits or restricts abortions.
So much for humanity.
So much for protecting the military from the detrimental impact of the culture wars.
So much for intruding on our nation’s military prerogatives.
Am I angry? Damn right I am.
Is Tuberville abusing his ability to create a logjam? Again the answer is a yes.
I have written before of my respect for our Armed Forces. My concern for the appropriate use of our defense forces is unshakeable. My disdain for political interference is unquestionable.
If Tuberville is making political points at home at the sacrifice of our people in uniform, shame on him. Family plans for new schools and housing are in limbo. Spouses might advocate for retirement or resignation.
Uncertain leadership changes can affect readiness.
Tuberville is exercising power because he can, not because he should. His actions are reckless and “dangerous,” as characterized by President Biden. The former coach seems oblivious.
Many declaim the lack of public respect for once-revered institutions. Ill-advised actions by irresponsible federal legislators add to disenchantment.
Wake up, Coach Tuberville, and sense the need to support, not suppress the promotion of key officers.
Howard Freedlander
Annapolis
William Keppen says
Thank you, once again, Mr. Freedlander, for you thoughtful comments. As a Marine who served in Viet Nam, I would add my comments on Tuberville, but they could not be published.
Keith Alan Watts says
Tuberville speaks . . . . .
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/us/tommy-tuberville-fact-check.html
Matt LaMotte says
He was a grossly over-rated and only moderately successful football coach. Funny how the “Peter Principle” works!
Willard T Engelskirchen says
A now deceased relative was a career Army person and graduate of West Point. As an enlisted man the Army had sent him to a prep school and then on to WP> His wife told me that in his military career they had moved about 20 times. This is a sacrifice military people make that most of us don’t think about. Holding up promotions has to be demotivating. The kids need to move and start new schools. Wives might be getting very tired of more sacrifice for no good reason. I can see some saying “time to call it quits.”
Tuberville’s actions are shamful.
Vincent De Sanctis says
I am perplexed why Schumer doesn’t use his power to challenge this absurd tradition. One is to call the GOP’s bluff. Start holding hearings on individual officers. Start cancelling days off and the August recess. Losing those days will quickly sober up the Senate.
Dick Gnospelius says
Howdy, I agree with you 100%. Most of our politicians nowadays are idiots who pursue nonsensical ideas. For example, why should politicians decide what women, or men for that matter, should or not do with our bodies?
We need massive political reform.
Reed Fawell 3 says
Many Americans feel that the US military leadership is failing, and for sure it is losing respect by reason of its actively joining the culture wars, at the expense of it mission to protect America and those who fight its wars by overwhelming deterrence and, if necessary, lethal force inflicted on our enemies. And its becoming clear these failures result from corruptions of all sorts that afflict today’s America.
Many citizens who feel this way are now also abandoning military service, and most of them are the very people who for generation after generation have shown up to fight this nation’s wars at great cost and sacrifice. So this loss of military power threatens to spiral out of control, absent radical change.
Unfortunately, too, these historic war fighters have valid reasons to believe that growing numbers among the military brass are failing them. Indeed, these generals and admirals appear increasingly to be corrupted by the elite around them that feed, encourage and often coerce them by threat to their career, profession and family. These pernicious influences flow from the voracious military industrial complex Ike warned us about decades ago; and they also flow from historic abuses by the US Congress, our federal executive branch and its massive bureaucracy, and now also our increasingly corrupt US educational, media, and activist non-profit and for profit establishments. Much of it is generated by their ongoing corruption of our culture and society. Such as the explosion of our race, sex, victim-hood, class and identity grievance rackets with their endless excuses, insults, blame shifting, irresponsibility, and inclusion demands for privilege, reparations, preferences and other ill gotten booty of all sorts, all without merit or competence or legitimate claim or right for any such demands. This has no place in the US military. But growing numbers of our military leaders, under pressure of their masters, are now incorporating these bad habits into the military. Over time these bad habit will neuter our military into a suicide pact. Our war fighter class increasingly knows this and refuses to go along, despite military propaganda denying it.
Why should this shock any one? While causes have often differed over time, it has happened in America’s history again and again. You can start with the American revolution, where many state legislatures refused to fund Washington’s army in the middle of the war, the War of 1812 which suffered for lack of warships and soldiers thanks largely to Jefferson and Madison, the Civil Civil War in ways too numerous to mention, and its aftermath when its US Navy abandoned steam and steel warships for the romance of sail and wood and the effectiveness of the US Army all but dissolved during the American Indian and Philippine wars with their war crimes and brothel life at home and overseas. This was followed by woefully under prepared and lead US Armies and Navies before and at the start of the First and Second World Wars, only to be capped by the Vietnam debacle, a dereliction of duty by far too many former and current American commanders in cahoots with the US political class. Welcome to history and human nature’s roll in its unfolding.
And so it all continues now unabated:
And, watching, you would think our most recent endless and “unwinnable” wars capped by the Afghanistan withdrawal and its whitewash since then mean nothing as a prelude for this latest cultural hysteria, when amplified by our shrinking army, navy, and air force assets that appear increasingly abandoned by lack of supply, air and sea lift, incompetence and leadership while they confront a growing array of threats on all sides and fronts – nonsensical hysteria at home, land and cyber wars and conflicts ongoing or looming in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Central America and the Pacific rim, alongside state terrorist threats, combined with open borders feeding drug, thug and human trafficking on an historic scale.
In any case,Tuberville thinks he’s trying to save the US Military. A growing lot of Americans agree with him. And, as usual, many in and out of the military don’t have the courage, moral compass, or means to stand up and say they agree in this vicious politically correct and lost American society of ours.
In short, too many military leaders today in the face of all these threats now run the US military and its solders, sailors, pilots and Marines on the basis of their latest pronoun etiquette, maternity dresses for fighter pilots, and white privilege and systemic racism, after their Afghanistan withdrawal performance and claims of great success – who wants to put their life and future on line for such leaders and their clown show? Fewer and fewer every year its seems. And who can blame them?
Michael Davis says
Mr. Fawell, I could not disagree more. I served for 35 years and interacted with Flag Officers daily. The military you describe only exists in the delusions of MAGA politicians. The military I served and worked in was nothing like you described.
I thnk Senator and Coach Tubberware is a traitor undermining our military. Like other writers here, I don’t understand why the Shumer and Senate can’t just change that stupid rule. No Senator should have that much power.
Beverly Williams says
Mr. Fawell, your apt comments address issues and concerns that your critics here–in agreement with Mr. Freedlander–seem to overlook. The most obvious danger to our military is precisely as your first two paragraphs reveal: namely, that the purpose of our military forces is to protect America by fighting wars–combat has no regard for the phlegm-suffused whimper of self-appointed victims seeking special consideration based on race, sex, biological identity/preference, religion, or pronouns. My bet is that the overwhelming majority of those in military uniform care not for the pursuit of political-correct foci. At least, not yet, not until armed forces continue to miss their quotas and begin to decrease required numbers of recruits, along with the lowering of physical fitness standards.
To devote the massive amount of time–and its concomitant taxpayers’ money–to the issues extraneous to military purpose and readiness that many of our most visible senior-level leaders in uniform deem paramount directly threatens the security of the country that they swore to defend. Our enemies (perhaps I should write “military rivals”) may utter no opinions or jokes about this misdirection that has too much to do with the US military readiness–personnel, arms & equipment, funding… but just look at their actions and see aggressive hostility and pursuit of hegemony around the world.
Dick Deerin says
Agree 100%. The “Coach” is a disgrace to the U.S. Senate.
Marvin Nielsen says
As usual with Letters to the Editor this letter only tells part of the story. The Hyde Amendment, originally enacted in 1976, restricts federal funding of abortions except in limited circumstances. See the Congressional Research Service article updated in July 2022 at https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12167.
This letter to the Editor states that “language granting commanding officers authority to provide transportation and leave for those seeking an abortion, particularly if they are based in a state that prohibits or restricts abortions” is in the Defense funding bill. This actually is a policy put in place in Oct 2022 during the FY2023 budget year (https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/10/20/military-to-provide-leave-travel-expenses-for-troops-seeking-abortion/). Following the current administration’s whole of government politicization playbook the Department of Defense is subverting the Hyde Amendment following the recent reversal of the Roe vs Wade decision. This controversy is being negotiated in the FY 2024 Defense budget (https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12167).
Defense funding is and has been intensely political. By reversing the Oct 2022 policy noted above and then adhering to the FY 2024 budget after it is approved this confrontation can be moved to the appropriate venue – the US Congress.
Kathleen Carroll says
This article doesn’t even bring up that Tuberville promised to donate all of his Senate salary to veterans organizations. So far the Washington Post hasn’t been able to verify any such donations–even to his own charity which is supposed to support veterans.
Jerry McConnell says
It’s surprising that RootTown’s constituents are still supportive of his performance …but it’s quite possible that they’re preoccupied with their own troubles, attending MAGA rallies, and going to church to worry about anything going on way up there in that America.
But, support of our military has always been dear to the hearts of rural folks, who have always volunteered for active duty in our country’s times of critical need disproportionate to their population.
In any event, this goober’s performance is an insult to all current and former members of our armed services. His supporters are negligent in not rejecting and criticizing his actions as a U S senator.