'Both parties' guilty of politicizing Arlington — but here’s why Trump’s incident is 'unusual': expert

01 September 2024

New York Times reporter, Chris Cameron — who was with Donald Trump during the ex-president's Arlington National Cemetery visit last week in which he violated federal law — reported on Sunday why the GOP nominee's latest gaffe is so "unusual", compared to other political candidates who have made similar mistakes.

The US Army condemned the former president and his camp last week for filming in a "restricted area" of the cemetery — for which the campaign could not receive permission — issuing "a rare public rebuke of Trump campaign officials for attacks they directed at a cemetery worker who had tried to stop the filming," Cameron noted.

The Times politics reporter emphasized that the MAGA hopeful's "campaign’s response to the most recent incident reflects Mr. Trump’s characteristic flouting of political norms, including those regarding veterans and military service that many consider sacrosanct" — including the fact he has asserted that former presidential candidate Senator John McCain "was not a war hero because he had been shot down over Vietnam and had become a prisoner of war."

McCain, Cameron added, during his 1999 presidential bid, "had produced a campaign ad highlighting his career as a Navy pilot and his reverence for his fellow service members. At one moment, the ad showed Mr. McCain walking solemnly through Arlington National Cemetery."

When called out for it, the late senator quickly admitted that he'd "a very bad mistake."

Furthermore, the Times reporter noted:

Other candidates involved in similar incidents often quickly removed the images. In late 2015, John Bel Edwards, a Democrat running for governor in Louisiana, cut an image of Arlington National Cemetery from a campaign ad after its presence prompted a backlash. 'When my husband and I see your commercial,” the mother of a man buried at the cemetery had written to Mr. Edwards, 'we are both uncomfortable and disappointed to see the Arlington National Cemetery used for politics.'

Cameron spoke with Duke University political science professor and civil-military relations expert Peter D. Feaver, who "said that the traditional separation between the military and partisan politics has always been under tension, but that he could not recall an incident like that described by the Army last week, in which a presidential campaign was told by the Army that it was violating the law, pushed ahead anyway and then leveled insults after the incident became public."

Feaver noted, "It is not uncommon that a politician drags the military into a partisan moment — that happens all too often, and both parties do it. What is unusual in this instance is how the Trump team reacted when they were called out for it. Instead of apologizing or claiming it was all a misunderstanding, they doubled down."

Cameron's full report is available at this link (subscription required).

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