“[I]f the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted…” —Noah Webster (1823)

The Washington Post headline says it all: “Obama Nominates the First Openly Gay Service Secretary.”

According to the Post, “Obama, in a historic first for the Pentagon, has chosen to nominate Eric Fanning to lead the Army, a move that would make him the first openly gay civilian secretary of one of the military services. … Fanning’s rise to one of the Pentagon’s toughest and most prominent jobs also reflects the Obama’s [sic] commitment to diversity.”

“Eric brings many years of proven experience and exceptional leadership to this new role,” said our nation’s worst-ever commander in chief. “I am confident he will help lead America’s soldiers with distinction. I look forward to working with Eric to keep our Army the very best in the world.”

Of course, based on Obama’s abysmal domestic and foreign policy record, his evaluation of “proven experience and exceptional leadership” is wholly unqualified.

Fanning does, however, have an impressive résumé as a pencil-pushing Democrat political operative, including several senior Obama DoD appointments. But his most notable qualification, as The Washington Post made clear, is his sexual orientation, or more accurately his chronic Gender Disorientation Pathology.

So, beyond the fact that Fanning is “gay,” what are his qualifications?

Fanning began his government career in 1991 right out of the Ivy League, which is to say, he never served in uniform. He started as a staffer for former Rep. Les Aspin (D-WI), who in 1993 became Bill Clinton’s secretary of defense. Fanning became Aspin’s special assistant, and was thereby part of the DoD leadership that denied the Army’s request for tanks, armored vehicles and AC-130 gunships just prior to the disastrous loss of 18 U.S. warriors in the “Blackhawk Down” Battle of Mogadishu. In 1995, Fanning shifted to the Clinton White House as director of political affairs.

After the election of George W. Bush in 2000, Fanning’s political appointments ended. Between 2001 and the election of Obama in 2008, Fanning worked for lobbying and advocacy organizations, including a stint as associate producer at CBS News in New York. He was a major supporter of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a political action committee advocating for more LGBT public officials.

In 2009, Fanning returned to DC, which now has the largest homosexual per capita population in the nation, and was appointed by Obama as deputy under secretary of the Navy under Secretary Ray Mabus. Fanning was Mabus’ key advocate for social engineering in the Navy and Marine Corps.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), a Marine combat veteran, recently called for Mabus’ resignation, noting, “He has openly disrespected the Marine Corps as an institution, and he insulted the competency of Marines by disregarding their professional judgment, their combat experience and their quality of leadership.”

Obama then appointed Fanning to be under secretary of the Air Force in 2012 and acting secretary of the Air Force from 2013 until mid-2015. It was under Fanning that Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Phillip Monk was relieved of duty and reassigned by his lesbian commanding officer after refusing to compromise his Christian views on homosexuals.

Indeed, the leftist Obama administration has proven to be the most disdainful and faith-intolerant regime in the history of our Republic, and Obama has exercised that intolerance first and foremost in his capacity as — it bears repeating — our nation’s worst-ever commander in chief.

He has ordered “gay pride celebrations” across the service branches and is now backing Fanning’s latest social engineering exercise, ordering a review of policies prohibiting “transgendered” personnel in the ranks. (For the record, there is no such thing as “transgendered.” A gender disoriented person may “identify” as another sex, but they will always be the same gender they were when first formed in their mother’s womb.)

In June of this year, Obama appointed Fanning to the post of under secretary of the Army, in preparation for his nomination as secretary.

Now, Fanning, whose résumé is the product of Clinton and Obama appointments, stands nominated to become the 22nd secretary of the Army, the largest of our military service branches.

He is the crown jewel in Obama’s “Do Ask, Do Tell” reversal of Clinton’s prohibition on open homosexuality in the military — passed into law in the last hours of Obama’s lame-duck Demo Congress, which was routed by Republicans in the 2010 midterm, who then assumed control of the House of Representatives in the 112th Congress.

Fanning’s appointment is, first and foremost, a political charade — as is most every Obama appointment. The purpose here isn’t so much to firm up Democrat support from the 3.4% who self-identify as “gay” but to curry favor with millions of primarily single women voters, large majorities of whom elected Obama twice.

This appointment is a cynical political setup to force confrontation over the gender disorientation issue during his Senate confirmation hearings ahead of the 2016 election.

However, Fanning’s appointment is far more dangerous than most of Obama’s political charades.

Here are the circumstances Obama’s next Army secretary will confront: Obama ordered our retreat from Iraq, which seeded the Middle East meltdown, gave rise to the Islamic State, and resulted in one of modern history’s most catastrophic humanitarian crises. As a result, the Army’s war-weary troop levels are down to 450,000, and Obama plans to cut another 40,000, along with additional deep cuts in military acquisition. This will reduce our Army manpower to its lowest levels since before Ronald Reagan rebuilt our military.

In July, when Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno departed, he warned, “We don’t have the ability to deter. The reason we have a military is to deter conflict and prevent wars. And if people believe we are not big enough to respond, they miscalculate.”

Additionally, the “Obama effect” on military morale has been devastating. According to reputable annual surveys conducted by The Military Times, Obama’s approval rating among military personnel has fallen from a paltry 35% in 2009 to just 15% now, while his disapproval ratings have increased to 55%.

“There is a real crisis in morale and retention that has developed for the Army over the last several years,” said Duncan Hunter’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper.

Here is the short list of reality checks that are affecting our military:

• Reckless foreign policy and an incompetent CINC, including a disastrous campaign promise to retreat from Iraq, abandoning all the blood and treasure expended there
• 15 consecutive years of combat deployments
• Transition from conventional (state-on-state/army-v-army) warfare to counterinsurgency and irregular warfare
• More restrictive rules of engagement — “If I shoot this insurgent, are the bureaucrats and lawyers going to object?” “If I smack down an Afghan national for raping children, will I be discharged from the service?”
• Budget cuts that make a very difficult job much more dangerous
• Significant cuts to force structure, including “early outs” and reduced opportunities for promotion
• Democrats insisting they will only support DoD budget increases with equal increases for entitlements
• Domestic terrorism targeting military and Chinese hacks of military personnel records
• VA scandals: you call that a benefit?
• Skyrocketing PTSD and suicide rates
• Politicization of intelligence estimates by DoD civilians
• The traitorous Bergdahl “deal,” trading terrorists for this PoS
• Pushing homosexuals and “transgendered” persons into the ranks, and opening all combat positions to females
• Petraeus and others are prosecuted vigorously for improperly handling classified material, but Hillary gets a pass for much more serious (in quantity and quality) violations

All of these things combine to drive down military readiness and morale.

Obama’s “Rainbow White House” solution to all of the issues undermining military morale and readiness? Again, the Washington Post headline says it all: “Obama Nominates the First Openly Gay Service Secretary.”

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