December 23, 2005

It has been my great good fortune to have held some fascinating jobs; billets that have allowed me to learn and do things most Americans never have the opportunity to learn or do. I’ve been allowed to lead Marines in combat; teach advanced evasion, wilderness survival, interrogation resistance and prison-escape methods to elite military personnel; instruct various people in counterterrorism measures; and teach those with the need to know how to recognize and defend against propaganda. I have indeed been lucky in my job assignments. And my job today as the host of a rather popular talk-radio program is one I enjoy for a variety of reasons, including my being required to do a lot of research on the broad array of topics I cover on the "Gunny Bob Show."

Politics is a frequent topic on my show, as you might imagine, and for each three-hour show I average around eight hours of show-preparation time. Having done hundreds and hundreds of shows on politics, for which I have read and re-reread the Constitution many times and interviewed many Constitutional scholars in the course of said research, I was confident, until this morning, that my take on, and knowledge of, the Constitution was above average. But I still manage to learn new things about the Constitution.

For example, today I learned that the Constitution requires "the media," "the courts" and "international organizations" (such as the United Nations, European Union, International Criminal Court, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, etc. presumably) to closely supervise the president of the United States, a.k.a. the commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces, including during time of war. In all my research of the Constitution, how could I have missed that?

And the same sage from whom I learned these facts caused me to be mortified yet again when he informed me that a commander in chief who takes secrecy seriously during time of war is clearly an evil tyrant. How embarrassing for me to learn after all the time I spent in the field of counterterrorism, reconnaissance and special operations that secrecy is a silly idea and that we should tell our enemy what we are doing and how we are doing it. D’oh!

Who is this Constitutional scholar, sagacious warfighting strategist and intelligence guru?

Why, none other than Denver Post columnist Reggie Rivers, who used to play football (yes, that is his sole qualification to be a political, warfare, Constitutional and legal columnist for the notorious daily).

From his fetid lair protected by a parapet of the far-left fringe, Rivers mounts his assault on the facts. A vulnerable public, most of whom have never read the Constitution and most of whom have never been taught how to recognize the false implications, half-truths, misinformation and disinformation that form the foundation of Rivers’ blatantly leftist propaganda (much less defend against such perfidious attacks), is left to sort through the shattered remnants of the truth.

That’s where I come in. Because the "Gunny Bob Show" is heard by far, far more people than Rivers has readers, and because of my real-world (as opposed to entirely academic, vicarious and theoretical) background, I am able to point out Rivers’ duplicitous claims and illusory rhetoric.

Of course, Rivers’ asinine declaration that the media, international organizations and the courts are required by the Constitution to supervise the commander in chief is demonstrably false. As most high school sophomores can tell you with certainty, the Constitution says no such thing. Still, Rivers assumes his readers are so moronic that they will accept him at his specious word. Rivers’ admirers remind me of the herd of Cornish sheep I watched one day in Tregony as the leader gathered his herd into the corner of a rock-walled glen, allowing a pair of foxes to pick off several lambs in under a minute with ease, knowing the sheep would all cower there. In the three minutes it took me to cover the half mile between me and the sheep, the foxes had slain five lambs.

Looking at the herd’s dominant ram, I wondered how so inept a leader had managed to gain a purchase on power.

Perhaps he used to play football.