Perhaps someone needs a refresher on civilian supremacy over the military.  Here it is: the president of the United States is the ultimate leader of all the United States military.  The military brass and its civilian leadership have only a couple of options when they do not agree with the president: follow orders despite their disagreement, refuse to follow those orders and thus be removed from their positions and subject to court-martial for failure to obey orders, or resign.

Like him or not, the president is Donald J. Trump.  He is our president — unless he is convicted by the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate (extremely unlikely), thus removed from office; resigns of his own volition; is removed under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment for cause; dies in office; or is removed by the next election (a poor prospect, given the enormous leftward drift of the current field of Democrat candidates).

In the words of another president: Trump is the decider-in-chief.  The current dust-up over whether a Navy SEAL, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, will keep his trident pin (the symbol of a Navy SEAL) and be demoted is a case in point. Navy officials attempted to remove that designation and demote him, but the president had (as one of his powers enumerated in the U.S. Constitution) given him a pardon.  Earlier this year, the president had also pardoned Army lieutenant Clint Lorance and Maj. Matt Golsteyn, each of whom had been convicted in similar cases.

Some in the media, unsurprisingly all being opposed to the current president from an ideological standpoint, have pontificated (or is it bloviated?) over these pardons.  Like most partisans, they have seized on a convenient bludgeon with which to verbally assault our president.  They ignore completely the fact of civilian supremacy over the military.

They may not like the current occupant of the office of president (much as many conservatives did not like then-president Obama), but President Trump is the leader of our nation.  He faces impeachment (on what basis depends on when one asks) by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives and daily vilification by much of the (equally partisan) news media, the difference being that he (unlike Bush the Younger) will strike back.

President Bush the Younger assumed that the truth will rise over the constant verbal and media assaults, but President Trump will (some will think bombastically) defend himself against any and all actual and perceived threats to his presidency and person. His defenders cheer, while his detractors are confounded by his vigor.