Quote Of The Day (U.S. Armed Forced Edition)

This Court will not interfere in internal military affairs nor be used as a tool by military officers to avoid deployment. The Court has a word for such a refusal to follow the orders of the President of the United States, but it will leave the issue to the military to resolve.

-Judge David O. Carter, Order To Dismiss,
Barnett v. Obama, SACV 09-0082 DOC (ANx) (2009).

I figured some of the regulars might enjoy that comment from The Honorable Judge Carter, part of yesterday's order dismissing one of Orly Taitz's last remaining cases against the President Of The United States. I'm still reading the order, so there may (or may not) be some more choice excerpts to follow. (I'm not sure there will be any real commentary, since I frankly find Taitz's quixotic efforts to be so lame-brained that these dismissals seem inevitable for self-evident reasons.)

I will say this, though: I think I've wondered elsewhere (perhaps here or perhaps in the real world) what the Birthers were hoping to accomplish, since removing the President would, as every schoolchild knows, result in Vice-President Biden's succession. (And, I almost hate to say this, but who wants that? I mean, I actually like Joe, but, y'know, he's like your crazy goofy uncle who shows up at barbecues and tells awesome stories and sneaks you beers or lets you take his car for a spin around the gravel drive even though he thinks you're "sixteen, that's old enough," when really you're, like fifteen. Next week. Sure, he's a real kick in the pants, but you wouldn't actually want to spend the summer with him or something, because even though you're only fifteen--almost--even you know that the charms of having a parental unit whose idea of dinner is Cocoa Puffs and scrambled eggs would wear off in a day, day-and-a-half, tops.) Well, turns out Birther fantasies are a helluva lot scarier than that: seems that the injunctive relief they were seeking included a pretty-total shutdown of the Executive Branch while the President spent the next several years in court on a foolish crusade to prove his citizenship (I mean, at this point it's clear that the Birthers would continue to demand proof that the President was born on American soil even if somebody built a time machine that allowed them to teleport directly into Stanley Ann Dunham's uterus on August 4^th, 1961), with new elections to be held if a judge found for the plaintiffs.

The idea is implausible, but it's also horrifying in its implications. Is that what The Birthers really wanted? Not just to subvert the democratic will of the people (after all, regardless of where the President was born--which, incidentally, was in the American state of Hawai'i--I don't think anyone is arguing that the President didn't enjoy a majority vote; on a related note, it's amusing to remember, as Judge Carter reminds us, that Birther plaintiffs Alan Keyes and Rev. Wiley Drake "received a total of four-hundredth of one percent of the popular vote for President"--dammit, if only people hadn't been tricked into voting for that Kenyan guy, maybe they would have voted for that other black guy, the one who got 1/4000^th 4/10,000^th of the popular vote!), but to ignore the actual text of the Constitution regarding succession and/or impeachment while effectively bringing all governmental functions, including the ability to effectively defend the country from attack, to a screaming halt? Really? Ye gods, it's beyond stupid and insane and well into Twilight Zone territory, get me Serling's ghost to narrate.

And it's the Birthers who are afraid Obama will destroy America? Really? I should be writing this post with interrobangs in every sentence.