Mac-Coleman

6 June 2013 - 

Quibblers, All of Them! 

When I was a new second lieutenant in the Air Force, my commander, a gray-haired colonel, stood me at attention in his office.  After reading my initial training report, he ordered me to sit down and listen carefully.  His profound lesson on leadership sheds light on why those embroiled in this administration’s scandals are so wrong in what they have done.        

The colonel asked me if I knew what quibbling was.  I said yes, I think so.  He then said that his definition of the word would guide me to be an honorable, trustworthy leader.  He said that quibbling is to not state the whole truth when one’s commander asks a question.  He further explained that quibbling is when one’s statements deliberately do not lead to the complete resolution of an issue. The colonel said that quibblers lurk in a nether world of relativism, where deception and distraction are valued more highly than honesty and forthrightness, where master quibblers abuse public trust for personal or partisan gain.  He said that quibblers are bigger dangers than any outside enemy force.  Quibblers seek power not to protect, but to self-aggrandize.  Quibblers chew at the principles of a free society and at its protecting institutions.   Quibblers get people killed. 

My colonel then told me that the Air Force was his and not mine yet.  His Air Force operated on trust, not on power.  His officers were honorable and truthful when confronted with moral or physical danger.  His officers trusted each other to get the mission done right because they took seriously their oath of commissioning.  His officers placed the mission and their compatriots’ lives ahead of their own lives.  Therefore, if one of his officers did mess up, the only thing that could lessen the inevitable consequences of such misjudgment was complete honesty.  His officers then could accept that their compatriot’s failure was not one of character.  Trust and cohesiveness could be restored.  That was the only way, as well, that the public trust could be maintained.  He stated that he would throw me out of his Air Force if I proved myself to be a quibbler.   

The colonel then ordered me to read aloud my oath of commissioning. 

“I, LeRoy M. Coleman, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

I did not have to look up my oath of commissioning to write it down today.   

I told the colonel I would live up to my oath and never quibble.  He welcomed me to his Air Force and then dismissed me to get back to work.  Over the years, I have seen the damage to the institution caused by quibbling Airmen of all ranks.  I threw out as many of them as I could from my Air Force.        

Everyone slogging in the scandals of Benghazi, the IRS, and the Justice Department took a similar oath to the one I took thirty-four years ago today.  Sadly, every one of them has quibbled about his or her actions and intentions when questioned by Congress.  They all have shown themselves to be sources of rot in our public institutions.  They have shown themselves to care more about deflecting and obfuscating the truth than about right, wrong, honor, or trustworthiness.  They even seem to revel in the “purpose of evasion” of their actions.

As these scandals continue to fester, more Americans are focusing on the rightness and wrongness of their public officials’ actions.  The people’s ultimate question will soon take the form of a moral, not a legal one:  Can these officials be trusted with public policy and monies?  Tragically, my colonel’s demand for honor and trustworthiness among his officers has not been repeated by the leaders of the organizations involved in these scandals.  They all have quibbled.  Good Americans must demand that the administration get rid of these quibblers and that our government institutions follow constitutional rather than partisan principles.  My question:  Will our president rise to the occasion and commit principled action to restore public trust?  Or, will he continue to display himself as the one from whom these corrupt quibblers have taken their cues in the last five years?  Will we, at the end of the day, continue to have a quibbler-in-chief?