National Journal Thinks WHA-A-TTT About Constitution and Patriotic Americans?
By Paul Hair
Clash Daily Contributor
I’ve already written that National Journal is “a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party.” However, I now have to question what it thinks about the Constitution and patriotic Americans in general.
Michael Hirsh wrote, “We Negotiate With Terrorists, So Why Not With the GOP?” on October 1 when the fight over raising the debt ceiling still raged. In it he wrote:
But if the administration’s approach is to cast the House GOP members as jihadists wielding ballots instead of bullets, then perhaps it should adopt the same policy it applies to real terrorists: Don’t negotiate at all in public, but meanwhile search for every back channel you can. Even among Republican jihadists, there are interlocutors to be found and not unreasonable inducements – like a repeal of the medical-device tax – to offer up.
The rest of the column goes on like that, explaining how the U.S. has (supposedly) regularly negotiated with terrorists in its recent history, and how the Obama regime should look to this policy as an example of how to negotiate with the GOP.
So what was Hirsh saying? Was he saying that the Democratic Party’s natural inclination is to negotiate with and find common ground with terrorists but that’s not the natural inclination it has with the Republican Party? Was he actually saying that the only way leftists can consider negotiating with those on the right is if they look to how they work with Islamic terrorists and then apply that to the right?
And then Alex Seitz-Wald wrote, “A How-To Guide to Blowing Up the Constitution,” on October 31 in which he advocates for replacing or greatly altering the Constitution. One can try to justify what he wrote as an intentionally provocative column intended to get a lot of clicks and attention. However, the bottom line is that he wrote what he wrote and National Journal published it.
Therefore, National Journal has clearly established that it believes that it is okay to question and advocate against the Constitution.
Seitz-Wald wrote another piece for National Journal on November 1, this one titled, “Retired General: Some in Military Want to ‘Take Out the President’.” He accuses retired Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin of saying something he apparently did not say (based on my research).
Seitz-Wald cited a WND article (“Top generals: Obama is ‘purging the military’”) and wrote the following about Boykin: “A former top general and current executive at the Family Research Council says members of the military have considered staging a coup d’état against President [sic], but will not because of civilian control of the military.”
Boykin refuted this on his Facebook page and I found no evidence of him saying what Seitz-Wald alleges he said in either the original WND article or the revised one.
In fact, in my reading of both the original and revised versions of the WND article Boykin says quite the opposite of what Seitz-Wald alleges. Boykin makes no mention of anyone in the armed forces talking to him about a coup and says that there is no threat of the armed forces conducting one. Boykin even notes his agreement with the Obama administration in relieving some officers because of their behavior.
I tweeted both Seitz-Wald and National Journal for the source(s) (other than the WND article) they referenced for their allegation against Boykin but have not yet received a response. Also, as far as I can tell, National Journal has not issued a correction on what Seitz-Wald wrote.
Furthermore, I can attest from my time in the Army Reserve that there is no threat of the U.S. armed forces overthrowing the president. In fact, if one wants to play the game of what military action the armed forces might take within the United States, I could make the case (*could*—but I’m not) that there is more evidence that the U.S. armed forces would overthrow the American people rather than the president.
Read, “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A “Vision” of the Future,” at Small Wars Journal and remember that one of the authors was actively associated with the U.S. armed forces at the time he contributed to that piece in 2012. (“Kevin Benson, Ph.D., Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired, is currently a seminar leader at the University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.”)
So what does all this mean about National Journal and what it and its personnel think about the Constitution and patriotic Americans? What does it mean when National Journal has no problem with suggesting the destruction of the Constitution even as it compares patriotic Americans to Islamic terrorists and suggests that they are national security threats?
I don’t know what it means. I guess each person will have to decide on his own.
Images: Courtesy of: http://courtcases.wikispaces.com/Texas+v.+Johnson
Paul Hair honorably served in the U.S. Army Reserve as a non-commissioned officer; he is veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He has worked as a civilian in both the government and private sectors. His writings have appeared at various websites. Paul now runs The Security and Culture Intelligencer website (http://scintelligencer.blogspot.com/) and is an independent consultant for Wikistrat, a strategic analysis and forecasting network. Connect with him at the S&CI website and on Twitter at @PaulHair1.
