(Note the uniformed military service member behind Musgrave at the GOP event.)
Josh Marshall informs us that the White House now has a plan to use, and is already using, active-duty US servicemen for partisan political purposes - which is kind of a big deal in a democracy where the military doesn't run the country, and where the war in Iraq and the war on terror are supposedly not political stunts. You can find Josh's accounts here and here.
Well, conservative Republican House member Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado (the lead force behind amending the US Constitution to take away the rights of gay Americans), actively facilitated the use of our servicemembers, IN UNIFORM, at a partisan Republican political function.
Musgrave's use of uniformed military service personnel at partisan political events which is a direct violation of US military rules. Not to mention, you'd think our uniformed service members have better things to do (oh, I don't know, how about win in Iraq?) than appear as props at Republican political events. Then again, Musgrave has already had her share of ethics violations, and has been ranked as one of the 13 most corrupt members of Congress. So it's perhaps no surprise she's breaking the rules again.
More from Josh:
The existence of this ban and the enforcement of it are hugely important both to good order and discipline within the military and to preserving our democratic republic. The military can't be made into an arm of one or the other political party. Nor can the executive be allowed to enlist members of the armed forces, either individually or en masse, willingly or not, as soldiers in his domestic political battles.
This is about preserving a professional military and preserving our system of government. It's a big deal. We need to find out a few more specifics about what happened at the Musgrave event. Perhaps the newspaper account is deeply misleading about what actually happened. But if this thing that looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, is a duck, then it needs to be nipped in the bud.
