What goes around comes around, I suppose. After four years of the media fluffing letters from “former officials” and the like insisting that Donald Trump should be impeached, be charged with crimes, and not eat chocolate ice cream, the tables have turned just a bit.
A group of 124 retired generals and admirals have penned a letter questioning Joe Biden’s mental fitness and urging the government to take election integrity seriously. You’ll have to excuse The Hill’s framing in the excerpt below. They aren’t nearly as accepting of this act of “civic duty” as they were when the target was Trump.
The letter, signed by 124 former military leaders and posted by Flag Officers 4 America, said the “Constitutional Republic is lost” without “fair and honest elections that accurately reflect the ‘will of the people.’”
“The FBI and Supreme Court must act swiftly when election irregularities are surfaced and not ignore them as was done in 2020,” the letter added…
…The signatories also questioned the “mental and physical condition of the Commander in Chief,” adding that national security issues require quick and “accurate” decisions “involving life and limb.”
“Recent Democrat leadership’s inquiries about nuclear code procedures sends a dangerous national security signal to nuclear armed adversaries, raising the question about who is in charge,” the letter said. “We must always have an unquestionable chain of command.”
The Hill described the above passage as questioning the results of the 2020 election, but it all seems rather tame to me. They are simply making a boiler-plate request that the government takes irregularities seriously. If that’s enough to trigger the media as if someone has just committed blasphemy, perhaps they should examine their own biases.
Now, do I think this letter means much? No, it doesn’t mean anything more than the many past letters that were hyped up in opposition to Donald Trump. Former Attorney General Bill Barr also managed to get hit by such an attack. These letters, ultimately, are just partisan exercises, signed by people with political views, though, their concerns for Biden’s mental health are certainly well-founded.
Regardless, I can’t ignore the hypocrisy. When letters like this targeted Trump, they were treated as authoritative, even driving news cycles. Now that some former military officers are going after Biden, it’s relegated to a short, snarkily framed write-up by a second-tier outlet. Either these kinds of things matter or they don’t. Some consistency would be nice, but I realize I’m asking for the moon at this point.
Anyway, no matter what you think of the letter, there’s no denying that we currently have a president who isn’t up for the job. That’s probably what’s most important here.