Send in the Troops (Who ordered U.S. Army soldiers into an Alabama town?)

Fox News - Glenn Beck ^ | 3/18/2009

[nevergore]

No one knows who ordered it yet.....was it a local oversight or did the order come from higher up in command?

Was this an overreach by a local commander or a test case to see how troops would respond to an order like this?

Regardless, I would never follow a command by Army in a civilian environment.

[Purrcival]

Interesting. Thanks for setting me straight. So this changed in 2007, and that’s why Bush couldn’t deploy the National Guard for Hurricane Katrina in, what, 2005?

[TigersEye]

I guess you are right. After this bill he could have. I’m not certain but it does look like that to me. In Googling info on this, which I had heard of from some post on FR, I found that this legislation was almost exclusively covered by the left. In fact the best story I found about it was full of complaints about how perfectly the MSM avoided any mention of it in spite of numerous points along the way that it should have made news.

[Purrcival]

My guess is that the MSM failed to cover it because they wanted to still point to Bush’s so-called “failure” to deploy the National Guard quickly enough during Hurricane Katrina. If they had reported this, they would have been forced to admit that he was bound by Posse Comitatus, and that Kathleen Blanco had, in fact, been dragging her feet.

[TigersEye]

That's the part I couldn't figure out and I think you're right. I could understand that the left wing press and blogs were all over it because they thought Pres. Bush would put them all in camps. (If only) I could also understand that right wing papers didn't because they didn't want anyone to know that Pres. Bush could use troops domestically without declaring martial law. That's a bit disappointing but not surprising. More disappointing is that no right wing blogs or forums covered it.

[Purrcival]

Yeah, really. I honestly think that Hurricane Katrina WAS the reason for this revision in the first place. Everyone was squawking about the response to that disaster, and few realized the legal limitations involved, above and beyond the political dynamics. With the measure being passed in 2007, I’m surprised the Left was upset about it. Why would a Democrat-controlled Congress try to enable a Republican President to put dissenters in concentration camps? Of course, we found out from polling responses from some Obama voters that they thought the Republicans still controlled Congress, but I expect the bloggers to be far more savvy than that.

[TigersEye]

I honestly think that Hurricane Katrina WAS the reason for this revision in the first place.

I expect that is right. Knee jerk legislation to solve a problem created by one stubborn partisan governor.

With the measure being passed in 2007, I’m surprised the Left was upset about it.

The left loves to squawk so much they can't accept the consequences of their own squawking. They howled that Pres. Bush didn't do enough. Congress fixes the problem and they turn around and cry that now the Pres. has too much power. The left are perpetual whiners who cannot be pleased no matter what the rest of us give in and give them.

I think that provision is a little troubling though. It does authorize the President to unilaterally deploy military troops for a number of broadly defined reasons. It is limited to 14 days when Congress does have a say in it. But a lot could be done and over with in 14 days and there is no apparent limit on how many times the Pres. could invoke this authority. I would be uncomfortable with that even if George Washington were the President.