Many of their orders and guidance were signed by George W. Bush or by earlier Presidents. Many were signed by the current Secretary of Defense, who was appointed by George W. Bush. Others, to be sure, were issued by officers appointed by Obama. I think it would be awfully difficult to isolate which orders are a direct result of Obama’s exercise of Presidential authority.
You and the LTC may be right that Obama’s authority lacks legal legitimacy, but the fact remains that that issue isn’t likely to be resolved in a court martial.
Honestly, I’m not really sure it’s a military officer’s place to question the President’s constitutional qualifications. The principal of military subordination to civil authority and the needs of military discipline weigh heavily against military personnel becoming involved in such issues.
Frankly, even if he’s right and he somehow succeeds, I’m not sure this is really a precedent we want to set. This is more properly a question for other civil authorities - Congress and the courts.
Yeah...there’s a lot that needs to be sorted out. I agree that it shouldn’t be a military officer’s place to question the legitimacy, but that’s because our officers shouldn’t be put in that position. I look at it like a platoon leader receiving a tactical order over the radio net. It may come using his company commander’s call sign, but it doesn’t sound quite like his company commander’s voice. If the platoon leader has any question at all over the “legitimacy” of the order, he would ask for authentification. That is, IMHO, all this LTC is doing.