{"id":172,"date":"2013-05-24T21:11:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-24T21:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2013\/05\/24\/when-to-salute-or-not-salute"},"modified":"2013-05-24T21:11:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-24T21:11:00","slug":"when-to-salute-or-not-salute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=172","title":{"rendered":"When to salute \u2026 or not salute"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>President Obama\u2019s critics are going to seize on this one, bet on it.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/video\/administration\/301833-obama-fails-to-return-marines-salute\" href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/video\/administration\/301833-obama-fails-to-return-marines-salute\">http:\/\/thehill.com\/video\/administration\/301833-obama-fails-to-return-marines-salute<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The president boarded Marine One at the White House on Friday and did not return the salute snapped by the Marine on duty at the foot of the stairs entering the helicopter. Obama came back out of the chopper, walked back down the stairs and shook the Marine\u2019s hand while \u2013 I would imagine \u2013 offering an apology for his lapse in military courtesy.<\/p>\n<p>Here, though, is the question: Was the president required to return the salute? No.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, not all presidents salute the military personnel who stand guard. Ronald Reagan was the first president in my memory to return the salute. In fact, his salute wasn\u2019t all that military-like in its execution. President Reagan\u2019s salute looked more, um, Hollywood than military. Those who have saluted superior officers while they wore the uniform know what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n<p>No president going back to Dwight Eisenhower, if my memory is correct, returned the salute. Interesting, too, that Ike \u2013 a retired general of the Army \u2013 wouldn\u2019t salute the military guards. John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter \u2013 all of whom were veterans \u2013 didn\u2019t return the salute. Then came Reagan. George H.W. Bush \u2013 another veteran \u2013 didn\u2019t salute the guard.<\/p>\n<p>Bill Clinton \u2013 who, famously, was not a veteran \u2013 returned the salute as did George W. Bush, another veteran. Now, it\u2019s non-veteran Barack Obama in the commander in chief\u2019s chair and he has decided to salute the military personnel.<\/p>\n<p>But protocol doesn\u2019t require the civilian commander in chief to return that salute. It\u2019s the president\u2019s call exclusively.<\/p>\n<p>None of that will matter to the legions of right-wingers who\u2019ll find yet another bogus reason to criticize this president.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Obama\u2019s critics are going to seize on this one, bet on it. http:\/\/thehill.com\/video\/administration\/301833-obama-fails-to-return-marines-salute The president boarded Marine One at the White House on Friday and did not return the salute snapped by the Marine on duty at the foot of the stairs entering the helicopter. Obama came back out of the chopper, walked back &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=172\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">When to salute \u2026 or not salute<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}