They might be called “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, but that doesn’t mean they should be used for the president’s own politics.
That didn’t stop President Joe Biden from using members of the United States military as campaign props Tuesday during a stop in Pennsylvania, where the band was put into the position of a backdrop for a chief executive trying to save his party from defeat in the looming midterm elections.
Though he still couldn’t even keep the candidates he was endorsing straight in his speech.
The U.S. Marine Band was on hand in Wilkes-Barre, about 100 miles north and west of Philadelphia, when Biden delivered a speech that included endorsements of the Democratic candidates for Senate and the governor’s office in the Keystone State, according to Biz Pac Review.
Biden was plugging for Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is running for governor, and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is seeking the Senate.
“Presumptuous of me to say that. But think about doing me a favor,” Biden said. “Please, please elect the attorney general to the Senate. Elect that big ol’ boy to be governor.”
(NOTE: Biden screwed up the candidates and the offices they seek, but more on that below.)
The use of the military for campaign imagery did not sit well with some associated with the Marine band, according to Fox News.
“I was unaware active-duty service members can wear the uniform at political rallies. Ask Defense Secretary [Lloyd] Austin if there is an exception to that regulation for Democrat campaign events,” a source told Fox Digital.
Was President Joe Biden abusing his powers as commander in chief?
No such exception existed as recently as 2020, when two uniformed soldiers were seen accompanying delegates from American Samoa who were casting their votes to nominate Biden as the Democratic candidate for president at the party’s Democratic National Convention, according to Newsweek.
As Newsweek reported at the time, the incident spurred the Pentagon to issue a reminder in writing that “members of the Armed Forces, including active duty members, members of the reserve component not on active duty, and retired members, are prohibited from wearing military uniforms at political campaign or election events.”
But Democrats like Biden clearly have no use for stodgy old regulations like Department of Defense Directive 1344.10 (subject: “Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces”), which contains the prohibitive language.
Not when they’re trying to win midterm elections that will determine the rest of the term Biden won in 2020.
The combination of politics and the supposedly apolitical military was blasted on social media:
EXCLUSIVE: Biden unsettles Marine Band members by campaigning for Democrats at official event where they played. @HoustonKeene reports: https://t.co/MlpUbq46jH
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) August 31, 2022
They’d already have begun impeachment proceedings if Trump had made such a statement at a similar event.
— Dan Cannonball Fang Boom Boom (@FontanelPulses) August 31, 2022
Let’s be honest, Biden doesn’t care who he brings in for political rallys. The man is a menace.
— Al (@AllenIn2022) August 31, 2022
Why was the Marine Corps Band playing at Biden’s political rally? Isn’t it against the law to involve the military in domestic politics?
— Kristinn Taylor (@KristinnFR) August 30, 2022
Naturally, Americans can expect to hear nothing about it from the mainstream media.
Double standard, yet again.
Illegal as hell. Unethical and clearly political.@JoeBiden is slime.Biden unsettles Marine Band members by campaigning for Democrats at official event where they playedhttps://t.co/7OZBOHysI2
— Joe Biden (@retiredtroop) August 31, 2022
Biden being Biden, the ethical problems are baked in to the appearance and greeted with a shrug by the White House press corps that would have gone rabid on former President Donald Trump over anything remotely similar. Remember the uproar that greeted Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley’s appearance with Trump at Washington’s St. John’s Church in June 2020, to show that the country could not be cowed by rioters in its streets?
Milley, apologized for that, as The New York Times reported, showing the country the kind of flexible spine the four-star general would demonstrate just over a year later with Biden’s disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Heck, the country is probably lucky the band wasn’t being directed by Hunter Biden, naked from the waist up and using a crack pipe as a baton. (And recording it all on a brand-new laptop.)
That doesn’t change the fact that “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band is not the president’s own — to do with as he wishes. And it has no place in politics.
But the embarrassment wasn’t over there.
Anyone familiar with Pennsylvania politics this election cycle — or just keeping an eye on the races that will control the Senate come January — might have noticed that Biden had actually reversed the two candidates he was trying to support.
The attorney general Biden thinks is running for Senate is actually Josh Shapiro, a Democratic candidate for governor against Republican Doug Mastriano. The “big ol boy” Biden wants installed in the governor’s mansion is actually Senate candidate John Fetterman. who’s running against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Of course, it goes without saying that the establishment media will ignore that flub. Biden disgraces — whether father or son — have a way of disappearing from view when the bootlicking mainstream media have control over the coverage.
But that doesn’t change the facts: Neither Shapiro nor Fetterman deserve election to the higher offices they seek.
Nor does any other candidate running for office under the Democratic label this year.
Every American voter, conservatives, Republicans, independents and even the no-doubt millions of sane Democrats who can see how badly their party’s leadership has betrayed them, needs to turn out in just over two months and make sure the whole country knows it.
