Obama doesn't rate the pointy end.

This is a stunning taste of Obama's view of the military.  "Boy, hold an umbrella over me, this suit is expensive". 

(To put that act in perspective, try to imagine a British politician asking a red tunic and bearskin clad guardsman to "put that gun with the knife on it down and come over here and make yourself useful, hold my umbrella") 

True to form, one of Obama's last acts as President was to make another very big hit to the US military.

Obama's ordered the commutation of a traitor's 35 year gaol sentence.

This is a major blow to the institutional strength and durability of the US military, defence and security systems, agencies and processes.

After the Hillary "security doesn't really matter" email investigation, here's another unmistakable statement on what really matters in contemporary US government circles.  

Private Bradley Manning was deployed to Iraq in October 2009 as an intelligence analyst.  He took it on himself to reach into the US top secret routers, grab more than 700,000 classified US documents and hand them over for publication to Wikileaks.

It was an act so blatant and without mitigating circumstances (during a time of war) that he should have been shot.

Tom Cotton is a Republican Senator from Arkansas, formerly a US army officer.

“When I was leading soldiers in Afghanistan, Pvt. Manning was undermining us by leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks.  I don’t understand why the president would feel special compassion for someone who endangered the lives of our troops, diplomats, intelligence officers and allies. We ought not treat a traitor like a martyr.”

But according to Obama the message is that security, secrecy and the conventions that make the military tick don't rate.

The penalty is gone.  35 year sentence commuted to time served. 

Bradley Manning (now a US military funded transgender called Chelsea Manning) deserves compassion because jail is really rough, particularly for a Private called Bradley who wants to be called Chelsea.

There was no nobility to his traitorous crimes.  

Manning is no whistleblower.  

And Obama is no Commander in Chief.

PS - The US website Liberty News has a list of some of the Obama sleights.

February 2013: Michelle Obama’s surprise Oscar presentation in which the elegantly dressed First Lady was flanked by young service members in full regalia. The military as props for Ms Obama’s glitzy, pop star pageantry.

December 2012: The administration declares that troop insensitivity to Afghan culture, not Taliban infiltration, is behind the recent spike in deadly attacks. In fact, a draft Army handbook advises troops against insulting not just sacred Islamic figures but the Taliban themselves. Also off-limits according to Obama etiquette: “advocating women’s rights,” “any criticism of pedophilia,” “mentioning homosexuality and homosexual conduct” or “anything related to Islam.”

October 2011: In a shocking show of insensitivity to the sacrifice of our military families, the First Lady reportedly remarked how she “never gets to do anything with her husband, and hadn’t seen him in three days….” You have to wonder what the audience at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia thought about such a terrible three-day separation, when the families in attendance often had to endure many months apart.

September 2012: Who can forget the seeming disregard with which the U.S. military was treated when our fighting forces were insulted at the Democratic National Convention. With proud veterans lined up as so much scenery on the stage, a rousing video was displayed on the giant screen. A video that featured not American ships and planes, but  Russian warships and Turkish jets!

Current: And of course there’s the ongoing effort to muzzle Christians in the military, to shut them up, essentially to drive them into the shadows and cleanse Christianity from the ranks. Incredibly, a rabid anti-Christian crusader named Mikey Weinstein has been hired as a “tolerance” consultant to the military. Among Weinstein’s more shocking quotes is this:

Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces.