Alexander Haig hospitalized (Update, RIP)

The best part of the "I'm in charge" press conference was an exchange Haig had with a reporter who disputed his claim to the "presidency."

Haig told the guy something like, "You need to read your Constitution, buddy."

The reporter shot back, "I have read my Constitution, buddy, and you're absolutely wrong."

Anyone here know who that reporter was?

 

This is a loss of a very intelligent man.
RIP, MR. Haig

 

No offense, but I wonder if you might be thinking of the Nixon / Rather exchange about running for office?

What was going on behind the scenes after the President was shot:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/04/23/60II/main287292.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody

A CBS radio reporter who was in the room when Haig made his statement:

"I have to say that at least for some of us there, it did not appear to be anything more than an attempt to calm things down by providing an answer to a question that really was on the mind of most everybody in that room and much of the country," Foty said after learning of Haig's death. "He has been pigeonholed by that quote for 29 years."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/20/national/main6226176.shtml

I had no idea he felt as he did about the Neocons:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/02/alexander_haig_former_secretar.html

He was the target of an assassination attempt in 1979 while US head of NATO. Won't say I agreed with all his positions, but fascinating career. RIP:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/02/20/ST2010022001340.html?sid=ST2010022001340

 

Makes sense that he'd hold that view of the neocons, as a military guy, since many neocons couldn't be bothered with military service, but were more than willing to send someone else to die for their ideas.

 

RIP to my college commencement speaker.

 

Haig's great "military service"

Mr. Haig went from colonel to four-star general without holding a major battlefield command, an extraordinary rise with few if any precedents in American military history.

 

He just rose from the grave and said "I'm in charge."

 

So what? He was still a highly decorated combat veteran - the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, a Bronze Star and two Distinguished Flying Crosses.

Dwight David Eisenhower, meanwhile, went from colonel to four-star general in 23 months, later became Supreme Allied Commander with a fifth star, and never saw the front lines in his entire life, much less held any kind of battlefield command.

RIP, Gen. Haig.

 

RIP to an American hero. I'll never forget his response to the question "Who's in charge" after Reagan was shot. Al said, "I'm in charge" and no one told him that according to the constitution, he wasn't.

 

Thanks for adding that detail.

 

No kidding. A very unique tidbit of information.