Regarding the notorious latte salute gaffe by president Obama several days ago, we all know the protocol: a salute should never be rendered with anything in the right hand nor in the mouth. A further bit of protocol, which seems to have been lamentably left on the ash heap of history, is that the president shouldnt be rendering military salutes in any case. Even though the president is commander in chief of all the armed forces, he is still a civilian, as required by the Constitution. Even generals whove been elected president have retired prior to assuming office. The rules have been changed recently to allow prior service civilians to render the military salute, but President Obama is not prior military, and thus should salute by placing his right hand over his heart. This is appropriate for a civilian saluting either the flag or uniformed troops. And before anybody posts that photo of George W. Bush saluting with the dog in his arms, Id like to point out that Bush was prior service Air National Guard, which like it or not, is military service, and furthermore, Bush was holding the dog with his left arm and saluted with an empty right hand. Obamas left hand was clearly unoccupied. A point I havent heard anybody else raise yet is that there is a strict Muslim taboo against holding any food or drink with the left hand. Now Im not making any accusations here, but it is an historical fact that Obama spent his formative years in an Indonesian madrassa school, and old habits die hard. (For comparison, Im including the photo of Bush here. You can see that his form wasnt very good, but he at least cared enough to keep his right hand empty, and a dog is a lot harder to hold than a coffee cup. Additionally to Bushs credit, he held his own dog and didnt make somebody else do it for him.) → F Troop
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 17:32:51 +0000
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