I went slack-jawed during the Republican response when — lo and behold — right behind Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and in plain view of the cameras sat an Army Staff Sergeant in full uniform:
Per paragraph 4.1.2.15 of the official DoD Directive on “Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces,” armed forces member explicitly MAY NOT:
Attend partisan political events as an official representative of the Armed Forces, except as a member of a joint Armed Forces color guard at the opening ceremonies of the national conventions of the Republican, Democratic, or other political parties recognized by the Federal Elections Committee or as otherwise authorized by the Secretary concerned.
In other words, unless authorized by the Secretary of the Army, the staff sergeant was breaking the law.
I suppose this begs the question of whether the McDonnell’s speech constitutes a “partisan political event.” After all, he gave it in his role as governor of his state in response to the president’s State of the Union address, a nonpartisan political event.
But McDonnell didn’t give a State of the State speech. He was giving the Republican response to the State of the Union. The speech was carried on the website www.soturesponse.com with the blazing headline: REPUBLICAN ADDRESS TO THE NATION. Sounds like a partisan event to me.
Republicans like to tout their ties to the military as a proxy for being strong on the issue of national security. But by thrusting this uniformed Army Staff Sergeant front-and-center on national TV and endangering the poor guy’s career (he’ll probably be reprimanded for misconduct), I think we have to ask a very serious question: Do Republicans actually care about the military, or do Republicans just view military members as as political pawns to be trotted out at election time?
Update: According to the Virginia Voices blog at WaPo, the Army Staff Sergeant in question was Robert Tenpenny. Staff Sergeant Tenpenny admirably served with Gov. McDonnell’s daughter in Iraq, and I’m sure he considered it an honor to be seated behind his friend Jeanine’s father as he delivered the most important speech of his life. I can understand how in the excitement of being selected for such a prime spot, he may not have realized the consequences of that choice. However, he probably should have erred on the side of caution — my active duty coworkers in DoD were always very careful about this stuff in 2004 and 2006. A Navy friend of mine refused to so much as stand in the crowd at a Jim Webb rally because of the regulation.
That said, I’m also confident that the RNC knew what it was doing in its heavy-handed staging of the event.
