Principled Cowardice and the Seditious Six
A coordinated bid to tell troops to distrust their Commander-in-Chief reveals how far some lawmakers will go to erode military discipline and destabilize the constitutional order.
By Michael S. Kochin
December 2, 2025
In National Review, Andrew McCarthy has once again taken to the fainting couch. Confronted with the spectacle of Senator Mark Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers releasing a coordinated video “reminding” the U.S. military to disobey “illegal orders” from President Trump, McCarthy describes the act as “craven” but ultimately dismisses the administration’s response as “military lawfare.”
According to McCarthy, the President’s suggestion of a criminal probe or a court-martial is an abuse of power because the lawmakers’ speech is “legally unimpeachable” political dissent. This is McCarthy at his most bloviating—a confident assertion of legal superiority that collapses under the slightest scrutiny of what is actually built into the Constitution to ensure its survival.
McCarthy asserts that the executive branch has “no business” investigating these lawmakers. He rests this defense on a lazy application of legislative immunity, treating the Speech and Debate Clause as a universal solvent for all legal accountability. But McCarthy, a former prosecutor who should know better, ignores a crucial distinction: legislative immunity is personal. It belongs to the Member of Congress. It does not magically extend to the staffers, the outside consultants, the NGO minions, and the digital strategists who helped coordinate, film, and distribute this stunt.
If this video constitutes a conspiracy to incite insubordination—and let us be honest, telling troops to preemptively distrust their Commander-in-Chief is exactly that—then the immunity of the Senator does not shield the network of accomplices that made the sedition possible. By waving away the possibility of an investigation, McCarthy is advocating for a distinct class of political operatives who are above the law simply because they stand in the shadow of a senator.
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https://amgreatness.com/2025/12/02/principled-cowardice-and-the-seditious-six/
