There is such a thing as sedition. There is such a thing as incitement to disaffection. There is such a thing as conspiracy. I think it's time for the FBI to pay an informal visit to Congressman Mike Pompeo in order to explain these concepts in detail.

"It's unconscionable to put our military leaders in this position, where the commander-in-chief asks of them something that is unlawful," Pompeo told [Frank] Gaffney. "And my intention was not to put pressure on those amazing soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, but rather to inform everyone that you can't ask folks in the military to execute an unlawful order. And I hope that they understand that there are members of Congress that have their back in the event that they choose to make a decision that comports with their duty."

What in the thousand names of god is this? Just the other night, for reasons I don't need to explain, I was doing a little research into Edwin Walker, the Birchite general who quit and became one of the ringleaders of an actual armed insurrection against lawful authority at the University of Mississippi in 1962. (He also was the first person Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly took a shot at.) In the aftermath, in one of those episodes that showed there was a strong streak of moralistic authoritarianism in young Robert F. Kennedy, the latter wanted Walker thrown into a psychiatric hospital. Civil libertarians on both sides of the aisle went properly bananas at the idea, and RFK had to back down. My point is that there are certain limits beyond which democratic government cannot function, and one of the biggest ones is that there is one American military and that there is one commander-in-chief thereof, and anybody who attempts to disrupt that relationship is acting in a fundamentally un-American manner, and is also playing with a blowtorch in a powder magazine. Mike Pompeo was first in his class at West Point, for pity's sake. Glad to see my tax dollars were well-spent.

Also, Frank Gaffney?

These really are the fcking mole people.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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