Humphrey Bogart played the part of Captain Queeg in the 1954 movie, “The Caine Mutiny.”
Wikipedia has a detained
description of the movie, but a quick summerly can be read in the paragraph
below:
·
Plot & Characters: The story follows
Ensign Willie Keith, a young officer, serving under the paranoid and insecure Captain Queeg on an old
destroyer-minesweeper
Lt.
Maryk, the executive officer, takes command during a typhoon, believing Queeg
is mentally incapacitated.
·
The
Court-Martial: The core of the story focuses on the trial where Maryk is
defended against mutiny charges by lawyer Lt. Greenwald, arguing that removing
Queeg was necessary to save the ship.
·
1954 Film
Adaptation: Directed by Edward Dmytryk, the film features Humphrey
Bogart in an Oscar-nominated performance as Queeg, alongside Jose Ferrer and
Van Johnson. It was a major box office success and was nominated for Best
Picture.
·
Themes: Wouk’s
novel highlights the conflict between strict adherence to authority and the
necessity of acting against a flawed leader, while also examining the pressure
of war on military personnel
The best example of Queeg’s insanity is the
scene involving a quart of strawberries, which you can watch at the link below:
The Caine Mutiny (1954) - Frozen Strawberries Scene (4/9) | Movieclips
Captain Queeg has a
modern counterpart, and it should not be hard to guess who he is.
Former GOP congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene led the furious backlash to President Donald Trump’s foul-mouthed
Easter Sunday threat to Iran, writing on social
media: “He has gone
insane.”
The 79-year-old president raged
on his Truth Social platform just
after 8 a.m. Sunday morning, writing: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and
Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!
Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy b*****ds, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST
WATCH!”
He finished the message, posted early on Easter Sunday:
“Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
David Graham of the Atlantic had this to say yesterday:
“In an earlier, somewhat more
innocent era of Donald Trump’s social-media posting, one could still chuckle darkly at
his 2017 declaration that his approach “is not Presidential
- it’s MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL.” But as the war in Iran bogs down, his
communication has far surpassed the merely bizarre and become entirely
unhinged.
When Trump feels
cornered, I have written, he lashes out most fiercely—which might
explain the wild statements and actions emanating from the White House over the
past few days.
The nadir (for now) was an
Easter-morning Truth Social missive in which Trump threatened that “Tuesday
will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There
will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or
you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
Trump reiterated the threat during a press
conference this afternoon, saying, “The entire country could be taken out in
one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.”
Targeting civilian infrastructure such as power
plants and bridges is likely illegal. Trump would not be the first U.S.
president to flout international law, but he would be the first to advertise it
ahead of time on a social-media site he owns. The threat is also
strategically dubious. Installing a more pro-American regime in Tehran would
require the existence of some authority that is both able to govern and willing
to work with Washington; these sorts of strikes, or even threats, make that less
likely. (Trump insisted that he’s heard pleas from inside Iran to continue
bombing.) And using the threat of martyrdom to scare the religious zealots
currently in charge seems possibly counterproductive.
Topping that post will be
hard, but this morning the president tried. In a vague and threatening new
post, he shared a short clip of a crowd of shoppers—most of
whom were people of color, some of whom wore hijab. They were minding their own
business and indulging in the quintessentially modern, capitalist American
pastime of hanging out at what appears to be Minnesota’s Mall of America,
soundtracked with Gary Jules’s rendition of “Mad World” from the Donnie
Darko soundtrack.
These outbursts come as the
administration finds that military might alone is not enough to win a war.
Trump is now threatening to attack civilian infrastructure, because nothing
else has forced the Iranian government to buckle.
At the start of the war, he seemed to be
feeling smug, emboldened by his quick success in Venezuela, but any sense of
joy has evaporated fast. Last week, the president delivered a White House
address in which he could have attempted to either deescalate the war or else
define what victory would look like. Instead, as my colleague Tom Nichols
wrote, Trump did neither.
American wars in the Middle
East have backfired before, but the negative effects of this one have become
apparent at record speed. American and Israeli strikes have killed many top
Iranian figures, but the regime remains ensconced—and its control of the Strait
of Hormuz suggests that Iran may actually be in a strategically stronger
position than at the start of the war. (Iranian leaders today rejected a proposal for a cease-fire.) The U.S.
military is burning through ammunition reserves. The likely next step, Thomas
Wright argued in The Atlantic last week, is a ground war.
I have read roughly 25 books about Trump, and
all but one of them (Corey Lewasdosky’s book have either implied or stated specifically
that Donald J. Trump is insane.
The best book, though, is “The Dangerous Case of
Donald Trump”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dangerous_Case_of_Donald_Trump
The authors argue that Trump's mental health affects the
mental health of the people of the United States and that he places the country at grave
risk of involving it in a war and of undermining democracy itself due to his
dangerous pathology.
Consequently, the authors claim that Trump's presidency
represents an emergency that not only allows but requires psychiatrists in the
United States to raise alarms. While it has been repeatedly claimed that they
have broken the American Psychiatric Association's Goldwater
rule—according to which it is unethical for psychiatrists to give
professional opinions about public figures without examining them in person —the
authors maintain that pointing out danger and calling for an evaluation is not
diagnosis. They have criticized the APA for changing professional norms and
standards, saying it is dangerous to turn reasonable ethical guidelines into a
gag rule under political pressure.[
There are
two ways to remove this dangerous man from office prior to January of 2029 - impeachment and the 25th amendment.
If you read the paragraphs below, you will
realize that neither one if likely to happen anytime soon.
U.S. Representative Tashid Talib was the latest
to sound the alarm:
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Tuesday urged President
Donald Trump’s Cabinet to immediately invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him
from office following his genocidal
threat to wipe out the “whole civilization” of Iran.
“After bombing a
school and massacring young girls, the war criminal in the White House is threatening genocide,” Tlaib (D-Mich.) wrote on social media. “It’s time to invoke the 25th
Amendment. This maniac
should be removed from office.”
As the paragraph in
the link below points out, she is far from the only one holding that opinion.
Ratified in 1967, the
25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clarifies presidential succession and
establishes procedures for handling presidential incapacity or
vice-presidential vacancies. It ensures an orderly transfer of power if the
president dies, resigns, is removed, or is incapacitated, allowing the Vice
President to become President or Acting President.
The 25th Amendment (Section 4) can be invoked against a
U.S. President by the Vice President acting together with
a majority of the principal officers of the executive departments (the
Cabinet). They must submit a written declaration to Congress stating the
President is unable to discharge their powers and duties.
Bipartisan Policy Center +3
- Who Initiates: The Vice President leads
this process.
- Who Must Agree: A majority of the
Cabinet secretaries (or another body designated by Congress).
- Actionable Step: They submit a written
declaration to the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of
the House.
- Result: The Vice President
immediately becomes the Acting President.
- If the President Contests: If the President declares
they are fit, the Vice President and Cabinet have four days to contest
this, and Congress must assemble within 48 hours to decide the issue. A
two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress is required to keep the Vice
President in
****************************************
Impeachment of a U.S. President is a constitutional process
where the House of Representatives formally charges the president with
"Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors". A simple
majority vote in the House impeaches the president, followed by a Senate trial
requiring a two-thirds vote for conviction and removal from office.
U.S. Senate (.gov) +3
The Impeachment Process
- Initiation: The House of
Representatives holds the sole power to initiate an impeachment inquiry,
usually through the Judiciary Committee.
- House Vote: Articles of Impeachment
(charges) are drafted and voted on. A simple majority of those present and
voting is required to impeach.
- Senate Trial:
The
Senate tries the case. For a president, the Chief Justice of the United States
presides.
- Conviction & Removal: A two-thirds supermajority of the Senate is
required to convict and remove the president.
U.S. Senate (.gov) +2
Grounds for Impeachment
- The Constitution (Article II, Section 4) limits grounds for
impeachment to treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
- "High crimes and misdemeanors" is
generally interpreted to mean serious misconduct, abuse of power, or
violation of public trust.
Library of Congress – Constitution Annotated (.gov) +3
Consequences
- Removal: Conviction results in
automatic removal from office.
- Disqualification: The Senate may vote to
disqualify the individual from holding future federal office.
- Criminal Charges: Impeachment does not protect a person from
subsequent criminal prosecution.
U.S. Senate (.gov) +2
Historical Context & Examples
- Andrew Johnson (1868): Impeached for violating the
Tenure of Office Act; acquitted by one vote in the Senate.
- Bill Clinton (1998): Impeached on charges of
perjury and obstruction of justice; acquitted by the Senate.
- Donald Trump (2019 & 2021): Impeached
twice—first for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, second for
incitement of insurrection. Acquitted by the Senate both times.
- Richard Nixon (1974): Resigned before the House could vote on
impeachment articles following the Watergate scandal.
For now, the most that our fellow American’s can do is to
keep attending rallies. Even more important than that is to simply voted for
enough Democrats in the 2016 midterms in order to place enough people in
congress who can enforce some guardrails before Trump does even more damage.
Although Captain Queeg lost control of the Caine, he never
suffered any other consequences, and was evenutally transferred to a naval supply
depot in Iowa.
There are two parallels between Captain Queeg and Donald
Trump:
1) Although Trump was impeached twice, the Senate
was unable to get enough votes in either case to remove him from office.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impeachment_of_Donald_Trump
The
House of Representatives of the 117th U.S.
Congress adopted one article of
impeachment against Trump of "incitement of
insurrection", stating that he had incited the January 6 attack of the U.S. Capitol. The House impeachment managers formally triggered the start
of the impeachment trial on January 25 by delivering to the Senate the charge against Trump.[1] The trial in the Senate started on February 9.[2] At the trial in the Senate, 57 senators voted
"guilty", which was less than the two-thirds majority needed (67) to
convict Trump, and 43 senators voted "not guilty", resulting in Trump
being acquitted of the charges on February 13, 2021.[3
The
articles of impeachment were submitted to the Senate on January 16–31, 2020, initiating an impeachment trial. The trial saw no witnesses or documents being subpoenaed,
as Republican senators rejected attempts to introduce subpoenas. On February 5,
Trump was acquitted on both counts by the Senate, as neither count received 2/3
votes to convict.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impeachment_of_Donald_Trump
2) There was little doubt that Captain Queeg
was insane, just as there is little doubt that Trump is insane, and his Easter
Sunday posting on his social media account is more proof.
If you want more
details on Trump’s erratic behavior, the best sources are Rachel Maddow on MSNOW,
and Heather Cox Richardson in her newsletter “Letters from an American:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/
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