Chris Rodda Pens 3,000-Word Diatribe. TLDR.
Chris Rodda, Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s paid research assistant, writes an occasional article for Weinstein’s MRFF. Rodda considers herself a history buff, and her writings reflect that. She is also exceedingly verbose, with many of her articles going on for pages even before she says ‘the reason I’m writing this….’
She recently struck again, in a letter to USAFA Superintendent LtGen Michelle Johnson that was co-signed by Weinstein. The letter was clearly hers, as it lacked the alliterative vitriol or the acidic hyperbole characteristic of Weinstein’s writing. (It also contained no gratuitous ellipses or the pastel colored font Weinstein so favors in his emails.) She wrote it, ostensibly, to rebut a letter written by the ACLJ’s Jay Sekulow and Skip Ash:
Dear Lt. Gen. Johnson,
You recently received a letter, dated October 24, 2013, from Jay Sekulow of the…ACLJ. This letter was on the subject of the words “So help me God” being added to oaths…
Notably, Sekulow spent less than 2 paragraphs on the history of “so help me God” in American government while Rodda intoned on and on for more than 3,000 words on a topic that LtGen Johnson probably found completely irrelevant — if she even bothered to read it. In short, Rodda’s letter was a waste of time. (The letter can be read here, if you’re a glutton for punishment.)
Sekulow, for his part, spent some of his letter (PDF here) on the legal analysis of “so help me God,” but took the larger part of his letter to warn LtGen Johnson of “Weinstein’s agenda” [emphasis added]:
Mr. Weinstein and the MRFF routinely use bigoted, over-the-top language as they accuse others of making offensive and bigoted comments. Without citing a single example of any military leader in any U.S. Service who has espoused the view that the U.S. military should be controlled by any…religious group, Mr. Weinstein nonetheless compares Christian believers with whom he disagrees to al-Qaeda and the Taliban…
Assuming Mr. Weinstein’s claims to be even remotely true, one wonders where all the forced conversions are that such a view implies.
Weinstein’s unsupported declarations that Christians are trying to take over the military and start a nuclear war, and his practice of labeling people with religious beliefs based on no evidence whatsoever, have been noted here before. Finally [emphasis added]:
Mr. Weinstein’s numerous, erroneous demands invite extreme caution on the part of all those who are targets of his periodic tirades…lest the recipients become unwitting pawns in Mr. Weinstein’s strategy to eviscerate religious freedom in the Armed Forces…He is already publicly suggesting that you are dancing to his tune.
Yet, be prepared. Once you reject the truth as Mr. Weinstein defines it, you, too, will become an active target of his frequent invective.
(The warning is reminiscent of the ACLJ’s caution to Col Brian Duffy in August — just before Col Duffy reversed the action he had taken at Weinstein’s MRFF demand.) Sekulow’s words were prescient, as Weinstein has now turned on LtGen Johnson, in whose office he just recently sat [emphasis added]:
Weinstein had harsh words for Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Michelle Johnson…
“She is the fourth superintendent we’ve met with, and she seems to be the worst of all” in terms of her willingness to engage MRFF on their concerns, Weinstein said.
Worse even than General Gould, whom Weinstein called “Gen Ghoul?” Kind of makes you wonder if Weinstein has an equally affectionate appellation for LtGen Johnson — or if he’s afraid to do it for fear he’ll be accused of being sexist.
For USAFA’s part, it seems they, too, have learned the Weinstein Lesson. Again.
In Rodda’s 9-page, single spaced selective history lesson, she nowhere discusses the legal issues surrounding the phrase “so help me God,” nor her own MRFF’s sullied reputation on religious liberty. With no offense intended, LtGen Johnson — who earned a BS in Ops Research at USAFA — probably doesn’t care one wit about Rodda’s citation of General James Mitchell Varnum nor will her decisions be affected by Rodda’s mention of the Lancasterian method.
The USAFA Cadet Honor Oath has not changed. The phrase “so help me God” mirrors that which cadets will say when they are commissioned — when they repeat an oath that is governed by Federal law, not LtGen Johnson.
Rodda’s letter may be cute to some, but few probably read it, save a poor Lieutenant in the USAFA Supe’s front office.
As the kids say these days, TLDR. LOL.
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I read it, twice. I thought she did a good job explaining the history of the origin of the oath and clarified some misconceptions. She was even humble and corrected a mistake she made in her interview with Ron Crews. Just because she didn’t delve into court rulings on the matter doesn’t make what she wrote any less true. She’s not a lawyer though, Weinstein is. Just cause he’s incompetent in his profession doesn’t mean she is. I learned some things from what she wrote and did further reading to verify it. Just goes to show you can learn something from everyone.
The letter wasn’t written to you. It was written to the Superintendent of the US Air Force Academy, whose decisions on the topic won’t be based on seemingly irrelevant stories from the 1800s. A military commander’s decisions will be based on the law, which the ALCJ at least discussed in this case, and they will certainly be influenced by the character of those with whom they communicate — and the ACLJ clearly ensured LtGen Johnson knew the character of Weinstein. Rodda addressed neither of the points that actually mattered.
While you may have benefited from it, as to its purpose to LtGen Johnson, it was a waste of time.
As an aside, the letter makes no reference to Chaplain Crews; you appear to be confusing stories.
Just to clarify, I wasn’t trying to link Crews to the letter she wrote. Not that it really matters but, I wasn’t trying to argue against Sekulow’s letter, which I read as well, or defend Rodda’s. I read both and I only mentioned Crews because I saw the interview she had with him which she later wrote a blog about in which she corrected her-self is all.
While I agree her letter was most likely irrelevant in relation to the Academy’s decision on the matter, I was just trying to share that I thought she did a good job is all, nothing more.
I already shared my thoughts on this issue and I got your point in your response the first time, so no need to repeat that. My reason for commenting was because you characterized her letter as cute, which is fine, not challenging or questioning that. I was simply saying I found it useful even if no one else did, if that matters.
Hey JD …
Were those stories from the 1800s “seemingly irrelevant” when Sekulow brought them up to lie about them in his letter? He obviously seemed to think they were relevant. You do get that I was showing that these stories in Sekulow’s letter weren’t true, right? And that what I was doing was informing Lt. Gen. Johnson (and the public, since this was an open letter) that Sekulow was lying about history to defend the religious words in the oath.
Do you have any comment on the fact that Sekulow blatantly lied about history in his letter? Or is that acceptable to you even though you, as a cadet, took that oath saying you would not lie.
@Chris Rodda
The non-judicial historical stories Sekulow related were, indeed, irrelevant. However, unlike your treatise, they were less than two paragraphs of his letter, and not at all its point.
You are quick to assign such labels, and you even make a living calling people “liars,” but you really need to re-read the definition of the word and confine its use to cases in which it is…true. Two examples:
There is disagreement among historians about whether Washington said “so help me God” when he took the oath and became President. To cite one side or the other of a debate does not make one a “liar.”
Similarly, you said it was a “popular lie” that Jefferson “provid[ed] for Christian missionary activity among the Indians” because the Indians in question were already Christian. Your semantic gymnastics are in error. Even today, it is customary to call a Christian sent to minister to “foreign” congregations “missionaries” — even if such congregations are already Christian. That you are unfamiliar with terminology for a community about which you are uninformed does not make you a “liar,” but it does make you look pretty foolish.
More importantly, you ignored the fairly broad support Sekulow provided for his argument — including “irrelevant” historical truths — and you focused only on ancillary comments he made. In fighter pilot parlance, you’re quibbling.
It is not a positive statement of your position that you cannot address the central argument in any reasonable manner, but that’s a failing you and Weinstein share.
If you’d like to address a historical argument that’s actually relevant to the MRFF position, how about an exposition on Article VI? Few people probably realize that it was intended to prevent “test oaths” like Delaware’s Trinitarian confession, to which the phrase “so help me God” bears no resemblance whatsoever.
Oh, so it’s OK to lie if you do so as “ancillary comments”? That should be added to the cadet oath – “I will not lie unless doing so while making ancillary comments, so help me God.”
Thank you for so effectively proving the point.
What point, exactly, are you saying I so effectively proved?