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VIEWS OF THE CAPITAL TIMESOne goodthing aboutTrump:crisp saluteFor once I’m going to say something nice about Donald Trump, so all you Trump lovers who delight in peppering me with insulting emails, pay attention,I rate the snappy salutes he gives to his military guards when he gets off and on Air Force One and when he meets them in other situations as the best salutes I’veever seen from a president.It's comparable to that of a crusty Marine drill sergeant or many of the gung-ho soldiers I’ve encountered through the years. It’s crisp and snappy, the fingers are rigid and the palm is where it should be. I’m not sure DAVE where he learned it. He didZWEIFEL go to a military school for _a few years as a youth, butnever served in the military itself because of bone spurs in one of his feet.So there. Don’t say I never said anything good about the man.Actually, presidential salutes do not have a long history. They are said to have begun with Ronald Reagan — why, no one knows for sure — but after Reagan the salutes were continued by both Bushes,Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Trump’s salute beats them all.Interestingly, there's been a lot of controversy over a president saluting. Military purists like to point out that the president is not a member of the military, even though he’s commander in chief. That’s not technically a military title, but military personnel were always required to salute the president even though it was never expected that he would salute back until Reagan decided it would be nice.One of Reagan’s military aides, Marine officer John Kline, who became a Republican congressman from Minnesota, thought it was inappropriate for a presi dent to return salutes. Reagan, it is said, was disappointed and asked the Marine Corp commandant what he thought. The reply was that Reagan was president and he could salute whoever he damn well pleased.Before that, though, even real generals who became president — U.S. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower - didn’t salute, although Ike is pictured doing so to a Medal of Honor recipient who was being honored in a ceremony. In the military, everyone - generals included - are to salute Medal of Honor winners.President Obama caused an uproar particularly among tea party zealots when he saluted one of his guards while holding a plastic foam cup of coffee in his hand. The rightie bloggers were incensed and bomb-throwers like Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh accused him of being everything from un-American to anti-military and an embarrassment to the country. Obama was always accused of being an embarrassment by some right-wingers.There was nary a word, though, a few years earlier when President George W. Bush rendered a salute while awkwardly holding his dog under his right arm. Just the routine double standard, 1 guess.But good old Donald Trump wouldn’t be caught making such faux pas. Do you think he may have missed his true calling?Zweifei is editor emeritus of The Capital Times: dzweifel@madison.com and ©DaveZweifel.miJ. SCOTT APPLEWHITEThe addition of Neil Gorsuch, left, to the Supreme Court run by Chief Justice John Roberts, right, bodes well for free speech.Court has been free speec i champSTEVECHAPMANCHICAGO — Barack Obama had his share of poor decisions and out -right failures. One of his worst moments came during his 2010 State of the Union address. With six justices seated in front of him, he upbraided the Supreme Court for a decision on campaign finance regulation.With all due deference to separation of powers,” he said, “last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of lawthat, I believe, will openthe floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.”It was a rude breach of protocol, inducing Justice Samuel Alito to shake his _ head and mouth, Nottrue.”Obama’s first sin was being disrespectful to justices who were there out of respect to his office. His second was a bad prediction. The legendary First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams has found that of the $2.76 billion raised in the 2016 presidential election, corporations and other businesses provided only $67 million - 2.4 percent. Finally, Obama failed to recognize the sound principles underlying the decision.The Citizens United decision has been portrayed by liberal critics as proof that under Chief Justice John Roberts, the court has become a captive of business interests and right-wing ideologues. But Brooklyn Law School professor Joel Gora, who has served the American Civil Liberties Union as a staff attorney and longtime member of the board of directors, says they are mistaken.That ruling, he writes, is part of a commendable but unsung pattern. Over the past decade, Gora argues, the Roberts Supreme Court may well have been the most speech-protective court in a generation, if not in our history.”He’s not alone in this conclusion. Abrams told me the Roberts court has gotten some decisions wrong, but “taken as a whole, it has rendered First Amendment-protective decisions in an extraordinarily broad range of cases, and it deserves great credit for doing so.”Geoffrey Stone, a First Amendment scholar at the University of Chicago Law School who has fiercely criticized the campaign finance ruling, says, The Roberts court has given more protection to free speech across a larger range ofareas than any of its predecessors have - although sometimes unwisely.” Citizens United, argues Gora, hasbeen unfairly maligned. Here you had a law which made it a crime to put outa movie criticizing a major candidate for the presidency of the United States,” he says. The First Amendment, wrote Anthony Kennedy, “prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”Critics say the conservative justices saw it that way because corporate spending tends to favor conservative causes (see: Koch brothers). Some other free speech rulings, says Stone, could also be ascribed to a rightward bias -such as invalidating rules restricting protests at abortion clinics and overturning a law allowing doctors to keep private the medicines they prescribe.But as Gora notes, many of the court’s First Amendment decisions haven’t followed that track. It struck down a federal law making it a crime to falsely claim to have won military medals and a California law barring the sale of violent video games to minors.A court awarded $5 million to the parents of a Marine whose funeral drew demonstrators with signs bearing such offensive messages as Thank God for dead soldiers.” The Supreme Court said the verdict violated the protesters’ freedom of speech.It also ruled against a George W.Bush administration policy requiring overseas groups getting AIDS prevention funds to adopt “a policy explicitly opposing prostitution.” None of those decisions fit the policy preferences of conservatives.The court has sometimes gone wrong on free speech. It upheld a public high school’s suspension of a student who brandished a sign saying “Bong hits 4 Jesus,” which it took to be a pro-drug sentiment, at a school-supervised event. 'The court said public employee whistleblowers have no First Amendment protection for anything they say “pursuant to their official duties.”For the most part, though, the court has been a force for freedom of expression. Gora thinks that will be reinforced by the arrival of Neil Gorsuch, who shares the general approach of the court’s conservative wing. The new justice indicated in his confirmation hearings that unlike Donald Trump, he has no desire to make it easier for public figures to win libel suits.Liberals and others will often find fault with the court, as well as Trump. But thanks to the justices, they will have a wide berth to complain.Chapman writes for The Chicago Tribune: @SteveChapmanl3.
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