Tuberville Surrenders

He accomplished nothing but hurting our national security

Tommy fumbles

Senator Tommy Tuberville prefers to be called ‘Coach Tuberville’ instead of Senator. By all measures being a college football coach was the greatest achievement of his life I suppose. He clearly is an awful Senator and has done nothing but use his power for personal gain and attention.

Today he announced that he was releasing his 10 month hold on over 450 flag officer promotions that has led to massive upheaval in the military as acting commanders and leaders were shuffled around to multiple jobs. The inability to fully take their positions meant families were unable to move, kids couldn’t go to new schools, officers were serving in positions but not being paid at the right rate or accruing the time in grade that would ensure their continued service.

Tommy surrenders while hopping in his limo

All of it…all of that pain over a policy that has nothing to with with these uniformed service members decisions.

When it became clear that enough of his Republican colleagues were sick of his shit and would vote with Democrats to pass a rule bypassing his asinine behavior he surrendered.

He changed nothing.

He got what he really wanted

He wanted attention. He wanted to be the darling of the pro-life movement. For that effort he got awards. He got donations. He got press galore. From the back bench of the Republican caucus he became the center of attention for national security.

The thing about Tommy Tuberville is that he’s always been about one thing…and one thing only…Tommy Tuberville.He’s proven it over and over for his entire career. Don’t forget he promised he would only leave Ole Miss in a pine box and departed in a private jet instead.

The policy still stands and the only people paying any price are hundreds of military families, officers whose careers have been in turmoil, and the future of our military as good officers now see how the Republican Party is willing to use our military as political pawns clearer than ever. The good ones will leave.

Approved

To his credit Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer quickly went to the Senate floor and passed 425 promotions en bloc. While Tuberville maintains a hold on 11 remaining 4-star promotions the Armed Services Committee Chair Senator Jack Reed has promised to keep the Senate in session until Christmas to pass them too.

This quote from a story from PBS truly lays out the fury so many of us who served have had about Tuberville and his casual dismissal of the stress on the force he has created.

“For months, many of the military officers directly impacted by Tuberville’s holds declined to speak out, for fear any comments would be seen as political. But as the pressures on their lives and the lives of the officers serving under them increased, they began to speak about how not being able to resettle their families in new communities was impacting not only them, but their military kids and spouses.

They talked about how some of their most talented junior officers were going to get out of the military because of the instability they saw around them, and they talked about how having to perform multiple roles because of so many vacancies was putting enormous additional stress on an already overworked military community.

The issue came to a head when U.S. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith suffered a heart attack in October, just two days after he’d talked about the stress of the holds at a military conference.”

He laughed off any questions of the impact. Casually lying that he had general officers calling him to tell him it was fine and to keep up his pressure. I don’t discount that there are those in the ranks who supported this foolishness. The military is absolutely rife with extremists of all stripes. But anyone who thinks this won’t damage the military for years to come is a liar.

Tuberville will go on without a hitch. Major defense contractors kept on donating to him even as this idiocy unfolded. They couldn’t resist feathering the campaign accounts of a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The wheels of the circus that is our politics simply spins on again while those that defend it will get up tomorrow and keep on defending these monumental fools.