More Marine mess blogging

And the beat goes on . . . .

Josh Marshall writes another Musgrave Event followup, and he's not buying the Marines' spin:

I've spoken to a number of vets and active duty military who say that the training they got always made very clear that this sort of activity was prohibited. What's more, look at the regs yourself. They seem pretty clear on their face. And, if you read them, the whole point of the regs, as they're structured, is that having active duty military appearing in uniform as participants at partisan political events is tantamount to an endorsement.

Jeralyn Meritt has an easy-on-the-eyes overview of where we're at.

I think the issue involves more than whether there was a technical violation of the military regulations. It concerns whether there is a concerted attempt by Republicans to use those in military service for political gain.

Red vs. Blue weighs in:

At the event, uniformed members of the military were passed around like expensive china, with everyone taking a gander.

You have to give high regard to Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) and whomever chaired this event for encouraging this vile misconduct and putting these soldiers' careers on the line.

The Newsrack Blog has a great post up. The whole thing is needs reading, but here's an excerpt:

American politics has not yet quite descended to the level of a Field Marshal Hindenburg standing for office in his uniform,* but Musgrave's and her Coloradan allies' impulse would be different only in degree. Using uniforms as decoration and justification for partisan purposes equates the institution of the armed services with the institution of a particular party rather than service to the whole country -- it's one more little push farther out onto the slippery slope down the Weimar ski jump.

Elsewhere, Josh Marshall implies that the Coloradoan's first followup piece lacked - shall we say - balls:

The piece treats it as an open question whether what happened violates the rules. Every JAG officer I've spoken to, however, says it's open and shut.

In any case, check out the piece and see what you think. I'm curious to see this reported out from the JAG/DOD side to see their interpretation of the rules and also from the White House to get their response on their apparent violation of the same.

Hello . . . White House press corps?

(Last of all, Colorado Lib plugs Musgrave Must Go. Thanks, bro.)