TRADOC ordered to watch President?

[Schmedlap]

I'm snowed in today, so I'll attempt to revive this dead horse. I think this is an important issue.

... certainly there are opportunities to reinforce the system of civilian control of the military, and for individual instructors to fail to live up to controlling their partisanship. But just because something might be done poorly doesn't mean it should be tried to be done well.

As I noted earlier, aside from this being assigned for a targeting class, I'd be curious to know more context - both for why it was assigned and how it was used in the classroom afterward. I do not share the concerns that the chain of command required the students to watch a political speech, so much as I am concerned at the prospect of the current CinC being the subject of study in the classroom. It seems inevitable that this will lead to criticisms of his stances, decisions, approaches (and praise, as well). Perhaps analyzing a political speech of similar purpose from a past President would be better, especially since we have the benefit of hindsight to better understand the decision-making surrounding those speeches.

... Understanding our political system and being aware of its currents and trends is not just OK, it is essential to officer development. And it is important for a serving officer to be able to walk through that muck field and understand it, without getting covered by or slinging that muck.

I'd be curious to hear how the discussion went, to see how well the students avoided getting covered by or slinging it.