The subtext of the SOTUA was the trap shutting on the stupidest and most intelligent attempt to re-instate a corporate feudal system since the last one they fell into.
What I saw was a failed coup.
I'll make my thesis below the orange snowflake.
I'm too cold and old and lazy to spoon feed you the C-Span images. But check the JCS response to the President's announcement that the war was over. Now. 2014. No cushy post retirement jobs - the dreams of a military coup crushed. He had not bothered to tell them before he announced it publicly. He didn't trust them. So he neutered them out in the open. Shades of Catherine the Great. When Vallely crossed the GOP's Rubicon, the president was waiting. He and Michelle know their history. I suspect that speech was the goal of years of planning and hard work by some highly trained brains. Few noticed the panic and shock from military aristocracy. Rumors of a coup d'etat had been spreading, the President tried and executed them in public.
He didn't 'consult' with the General/Flag officers who serve at his pleasure. Who have advocated the highest treason a commissioned officer can - the overthrow of their civilian superiors and installation of a military junta. I did my 20 with these jokers. They were my 'brother officers'/rivals/enemies. They were oath breakers way back when. A nasty blend of religious tripe, paternalistic arrogance and the stupidity of rutting horseshoe crabs.
The rise of the 'fighter pilot' as 'supreme' warrior allowed the takeover of both Navy and Air Force by a eugenically engineered ubermensch whose tasks and rituals were separate and apart from the experience of the 2nd class 90% of the Officer's Corps. Didaleon clubs,
By 1981, Wilber Creech and his sycophants had built an fighter pilot aristocracy which grew increasingly decadent and insulated. By the 1991 Tailhook Scandal, when JCS and DoD declared open season on female officers, the writing was on the wall. Rank and position were less important than sex organs and membership in the secret pilot society.. Ex-CSAF Merrill McPeak felt comfortable telling Congress "There will never be a woman in a fighter cockpit while I'm Chief of Staff." Merrill - loyalty is a two-way street, you contemptible, vain little oath breaker.
The underground Dominionist/monarchists felt that isolation and indoctrination would turn a volunteer military into neo-Crusader/Taliban oath breakers. Wrong. Too many 'Dune' reruns, guys. Jesus doesn't ride dinosaurs and the troops will build an invincible argument to reestablish rule by invisible 'lords.' . Groupthink strikes, and embarrasses America. Again. Check facebook, morans. Some reality there....
They began to believe their own lies. But they aren't good enough to be Nazis, folks. We're talking Mussolini and Italy. Our Duck dynasty 'patriots' are the clown car of revolutionaries. They can't even provide the trains to make them run on time.
In any case, as I wine addle my pate, (on Sabbatical) the take away is that it's time audit the books.The President lanced the fetid boil of the Tory resurgence and the failed attempt to resurrect a gangrenous southern based aristocratic fantasy (see Njal's Saga.) by de-legitimatizing those who sacrificed for others.
the President neutralized a coup d'etat and removed Tory sentimental yearning for monarchy as a rallying point. Cheney will never sit on the Peacock Throne and offer his shoe for the Saudi's to kiss. Too bloody bad. He doesn't deserve to kiss my ass...And won't be.