Lessons of the Gallagher Case

New York Sun ^ | November 29, 2019 | Seth Lipsky

[billorites]

The latest hero of the Never Trumpers — the ex-secretary of the Navy, Richard V. Spencer — is out with an op-ed column on what he learned from getting fired. The answer, it appears, is not much. His column, which appears in the Washington Post, turns out to be an exercise in constitutional misconception, self-righteousness, whinging, bellyaching about his superiors, and tin-eared politicking.

Mr. Spencer, a Marine, was fired Sunday for misleading Secretary of Defense Esper over the case of Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher. The Navy had accused Gallagher of murdering a war prisoner — and of more than a dozen serious crimes. It turns out, though, that Gallagher wasn’t guilty of murder. A court martial acquitted him of that and all other charges against him save for posing with a corpse.

One would think that all those acquittals would have given Mr. Spencer, as secretary of the Navy, at least some sense of humility. Yet it seems that the only one who gained an early sense that something was wrong with the case against Gallagher was the commander-in-chief. Mr. Trump twice got on the blower with Mr. Spencer to tell him to ease up on the pre-trial conditions in which the accused was being held.

Incredibly, Mr. Spencer boasts that he “pushed back.” He blames that on the presiding judge in the case, who felt it was important that Gallagher be harshly confined before the trial. Hard to see why that would be, given that Gallagher turned out to be not guilty. We wouldn’t suggest that a secretary should be a yes-man. Yet Mr. Spencer seems to be suggesting the president was “interfering.”

The idea that a president is “interfering” when he’s exercising a constitutionally granted power is one of the constitutional misconceptions under which Mr. Spencer seemed

[MrEdd]

If Neville Chamberlain was on Free Republic....

[Pikachu_Dad]

And you are still failing to respect the Presidents Pardon!

Stop being a lost cause.

[piasa]

Read about Charlie Hebdo and his screw up. He put Allah in a series of cartoons and that got a business fire bombed and 12 people murdered.

No, that's as silly as blaming an inanimate gun for a shooting. What got the place firebombed was a loose jihadist who could just as easily have decided, as have innumerable Muslims before him, that unescorted women are fair game to be raped, or that a church full should be burned to the ground because its pastor performed an infant baptism and the pastor shouldn't have done that because it would anger muslims, who believe that everyone is born muslim regardless of the faith of the birth parents and therefore that every infant baptism is a horrible forced conversion requiring action. The answer to those who hate us for our freedom is not to limit freedom, is to quit admitting and pandering to people who don't value freedom into our countries, our military, and public office.

[Chgogal]

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