Attorneys are really something. Their whole world is built around words. Words are all important. That’s why you have stickers on plastic bags nowadays that have words that say “This is not a toy”. In spite of the fact that the warning from the Surgeon General has been printed on the side of a pack cigarettes, an in-law from my very family was the VERY FIRST person to win a big lawsuit for damages against the tobacco industry. It wasn’t that the tobacco industry made him too stupid to read the warning, he was an intelligent man, the Chief of the Air Traffic Control Center in Hilliard, Florida. A team of Attorneys got themselves and Uncle Grady paid.

That was many, MANY years ago. MANY Attorneys got paid on that one. Uncle Grady got paid once. That happened a long time ago too (in the late 80′s) and to the best of my knowledge he’s still alive. That Tobacco sure is a deadly thing. We would have never known if it weren’t for the many long hours that dedicated Attorneys have logged in order to make it a point and score in a Court of Law.

Okay, I’m a salesman by trade. I can sell shit to a hog farmer. I’ll always try to get as much as I can get for any product that I sell but I try not to get silly. Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered is what we like to say down here. Furthermore, if I AM successful in selling shit to a hog farmer at a premium price, then I am damn sure going to take personal responsibility for the quality of the shit, I will insure that it is delivered on time and will be willing to pay the driver extra in order to insure that he has plenty of time to unload it and place it to the best convenience of the customer. I will insure that any complaints about my product or service is resolved to the reasonable satisfaction of the customer.

That’s just how you have to be down here in the Dirty South. You have to have a firm handshake, look people in the eye when you tell them something and make them believe in YOU before they believe in anything you have to sell. You have to back up your words with action. You don’t run from problems. You don’t say “Black on Black, no take back”, a term in my business meaning that once you have connected electrical power to the product, it’s between you and the manufacturer. You have to take care of the people who depended on the product that you asked them to put their faith and money into or it’s YOUR personal reputation that will suffer. The customer doesn’t know the guy who built something wrong, he just knows the guy who sold it to him.

In the military words are especially important. The most humorous labeling I have ever seen on any weapon is “Front toward Enemy” but those words were not the result of a lawsuit. No, some folks I have seen in a military uniform genuinely would not know how to aim the damn thing if instructions were not clearly written on it. Every device the Army uses on the battlefield has instructions on them, pretty much.

Many of the words spoken on any battlefield are words that form an order. Though the person or persons carrying out an order have the responsibility for insuring the success of the Mission, it is the Commander who bears a greater responsibility by insuring that his orders are clearly understood. This is accomplished by speaking in a clear and concise manner. This is further insured by following your orders with a period of time designated for questions and answers. When the troops are clear on what their orders are, the Commander issuing them must then take the responsibility for anything that results from those orders as long as his troops were acting within the clearly defined scope of them.

President Obama has the mindset of an Attorney, not a Commander. His performance at West Point last week was laughable. It was confused at best, except in the mind of an Attorney. He built in plenty of escape clauses to an already confusing bunch of jibber jabber that Attorneys are known for generating. This is not a suitable method of communicating with the American People, much less the military leaders of tomorrow. Fortunately for us, the cadets at West Point are MUCH more intelligent than the Attorney in the Oval Office. I don’t want to get any of them in trouble, but several of them were engaging in passive aggressive coded communication, kind of like the POW’s in Vietnam used to do when the cameras were pointed at them for propaganda purposes.

Back to the subject, here are some clear examples of our Attorney-in-Chief issuing orders, directives or memoranda…

The Executive Order closing the Detention Facilities at Guantanamo Bay

The Executive Order ends with…

Sec. 8. General Provisions.

(a) Nothing in this order shall prejudice the authority of the Secretary of Defense to determine the disposition of any detainees not covered by this order.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

Executive Order to insure the lawful interrogation of caotured enemy combatants

Ending with…

Sec. 6. Construction with Other Laws. Nothing in this order shall be construed to affect the obligations of officers, employees, and other agents of the United States Government to comply with all pertinent laws and treaties of the United States governing detention and interrogation, including but not limited to: the Fifth and Eighth Amendments to the United States Constitution; the Federal torture statute, 18 U.S.C. 2340 2340A; the War Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. 2441; the Federal assault statute, 18 U.S.C. 113; the Federal maiming statute, 18 U.S.C. 114; the Federal “stalking” statute, 18 U.S.C. 2261A; articles 93, 124, 128, and 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. 893, 924, 928, and 934; section 1003 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, 42 U.S.C. 2000dd; section 6(c) of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Public Law 109 366; the Geneva Conventions; and the Convention Against Torture.

Nothing in this order shall be construed to diminish any rights that any individual may have under these or other laws and treaties.

This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity against the United States, its departments, agencies, or other entities, its officers or employees, or any other person.

Here\'s a GREAT one – Ethics Committment by Executive Branch Staff

It ends with…

Sec. 6. General Provisions.
(a) No prior Executive Orders are repealed by this order. To the extent that this order is inconsistent with any provision of any prior Executive Order, this order shall control.

(b)If any provision of this order or the application of such provision is held to be invalid, the remainder of this order and other dissimilar applications of such provision shall not be affected.

(c)Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(1)authority granted by law to a department, agency, or the head thereof; or
(2)functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budget, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(d)This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(e)This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

(f)The definitions set forth in this order are solely applicable to the terms of this order, and are not otherwise intended to impair or affect existing law.

The Executive Order regarding Presidential Records

Which ends with…

Sec. 5. General Provisions.

(a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) authority granted by law to a department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budget, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

The White House Directive that insures, get this, TRANSPARENCY IN GOVERNMENT

This steaming pile of dung ends with…

I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.

This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.

I’m sure that you see a recurring theme here. He actually thinks that adding that cute little escape clauses at the frees him of any responsibility for his orders. He thinks that carefully crafted words free him of answering for his actions.

What a joke! This guy is a first class clown. Let’s see if any of that is of any assistance when something he signs into Law runs contrary to to anything that preserves our Lives, Liberties and pusuit of Happiness. Those Laws won’t be worth the paper they are written on, escape clause or not.

There is no need to fear anyone who hides behind words. Talk is cheap. Action speaks much louder than words.

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