Barely a week ago, Nancy Pelosi took the extraordinary step of publicly revealing that she had talked with Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to discuss “available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.” Having witnessed first hand what the combustible traitor Trump was capable of, with the incitement of his mob terror takeover of the Capitol Wednesday, she was quite justified in pursuing inquiries re: the ultimate potential terror: unleashing a full scale nuclear war. Indeed, in a November post I had referenced such a scenario based on a scene in the movie, The Dead Zone, e.g.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj9M34DzAKo&t=21s
But evidently Paul Gigot, WSJ editor, believes Ms. Pelosi committed a "Coup" by so doing ('A Coup of Her Own', WSJ, p. A12) . Of course this is utter twaddle and one has to wonder what brand of MJ candy Gigot is on. All Pelosi wanted was to ensure no scenario with Trump unfolded similar to the scene in the above cited link.
But Paul Gigot evidently lacks the brainpower to grasp that making such an inquiry - and even notifying the press about having made it -is not the same as intervening in the chain of command, as when he writes:
"We scoured the U.S. Constitution Friday afternoon and it's definitely not there: the provision allowing the Speaker of the House to intervene in the military chain of command to protect the world from President Trump."
Well, I am also certain the WSJ's Gigot found no reference to nuclear missiles, nuclear codes, nuclear 'footballs' or nuclear war in the Constitution either. Nor would he have found any mention of an INQUIRY - or the allowance of such - for the House Speaker in the event an unstable narcissistic maniac was in proximity to nuclear codes. That includes what controls might exist for preventing his reckless use of them.
But having trotted out this rubbish, it's but one small step for Gigot to next accuse Pelosi of an "abuse of her own power, which is limited to leading the legislative branch." Hence she had no business "inserting herself into the chain of command." But the dull and dopey Gigot fails to process the difference between making an inquiry about the extent of Trump's access to the nuclear codes while in an unstable state - and actually ordering Gen. Milley or anyone else to do something about it.
True, Pelosi’s expressed fears were alarmingly direct in language, but this was not the first time the issue of what Trump might do with his commander -in -chief powers in the final days had been raised by those who have served in government. Earlier, the 10 living former defense secretaries had warned Pentagon leaders not to involve the military in any election disputes and pointed to severe consequences for those leaders if they allowed that to happen. Were they also intervening in the chain of command?
Then last week Friday Chris Hayes (on ALL In) interviewed Lt. General Russel L. Honore about the same nuclear code issue, and whether indeed there were controls in place on Trump's ability to access them for a nefarious purpose. Was Hayes intervening in the chain-of -command too? Was Gen. Honore by giving answers? Of course not! This is what I mean by a degradation in critical thinking across the board in this country.
Most worrying of all, when Hayes pressed Lt. Gen. Honore on the issue of being secure from any further Trumpian shenanigans - especially nuclear- the best the General could do was say "We will be all right, we just have to wait out the next eleven days." He gave no answer at any time that would assure the newly alarmed citizen that we're in no danger of Trump blowing up the planet by launching missiles and bombers with 3,700 nuclear warheads. A JFK during the Cuban Missile crisis he is not.
Yet Gigot believes he has all the answers as when he predicts: "Gen. Milley has been dealing with Trump for 15 months and isn't about to indulge an unlawful order, much less an effort to launch nuclear weapons." Again, if so, why didn't Gen. Honore go that far, instead suggesting we "just had to wait it out."
Doesn't sound very confidence- inspiring to me. Nor does Paul Gigot sound like any kind of intellectually capable editor when he wrote at the end of his sorry editorial:
"Mr. Trump failed his constitutional test on Wednesday. But Ms. Pelosi showed awful judgment with her grandstanding over the nuclear launch codes."
Uh, no, Gigot. Ms. Pelosi showed sound judgment and a welcome proactive concern about Trump's other powers to wreak havoc. Especially after he had incited a mob of terrorists to rampage through the Capitol, desecrating it with "blood, excrement, destruction and weapons" (in NY Times' Maureen Dowd's words) leaving six dead in the wake. Oh, and also now the additional security footage, videos show how close we came to a mass casualty event what with 12 Mason jars filled with a do it yourself napalm. Something Gigot might appreciate if he was at all able to distinguish between inciting an actual terrorist attack on our center of democracy, and merely inquiring into the scope of more horrendous potential attacks by the same criminal autocrat and demagogue.
Clearly, Ms. Pelosi possesses the mental acumen and logical discipline which Gigot lacks, which is why she felt this inquiry was needed, rather than risk 5 billion dead.
Which Gigot would know if he had half a brain, and didn't resort to false equivalence. Or believe he could get away with using such in his lazy editorial.
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by Jeffrey C. Isaac | January 8, 2021 - 8:10am | permalink
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