Maine Guv Phones Reporter: ‘This Is The Commander In Chief’ Of Nat’l Guard

Gov. Paul LePage speaks at the Maine Republican Convention, Saturday, April 26, 2014, in Bangor, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

After reading about reports of a reorganization imminent for a portion of the Maine Army National guard in the local paper, Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) called the reporter, introducing himself as the “commander in chief” of the military branch.

Here’s what happened: LePage called a reporter for the Portland Press Herald on Wednesday afternoon about Maine’s 133rd Engineer Battalion being reassigned to Pennsylvania, which LePage said he didn’t know about before the Press Herald published a report on the story.

LePage started the short call by saying “This is the commander in chief of the Maine National Guard,” according to the Press Herald. LePage said he didn’t know about the reassignment and asked for the reporter’s source. He didn’t get it though.

“Well, it didn’t come from the Maine National Guard,” LePage said. That’s when LePage hung up.

The call lasted about a minute.

34
Show Comments

Notable Replies

  1. To be fair, when Maine National Guard units are not federalized, he would be considered the Commander-in-chief (at least according to Wikipedia). God help those brave men and women…

  2. Doesn’t LePew have anything better to do – like, say, stop making his state a laughingstock?

  3. Avatar for jsfox jsfox says:

    However National Guard units ore under the umbrella command of the Dod and units get reassigned by them. And if I was the DoD I wouldn’t talk to LePage either. But my guess is that LePage being the idiot that he is didn’t read the memo from the DoD

  4. This guy is so nutty he should be sponsored by Skippy.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

28 more replies

Participants

Avatar for system1 Avatar for publishermike Avatar for runfastandwin Avatar for willpower Avatar for sabatia Avatar for jsfox Avatar for 365daysofhorror Avatar for micaiah Avatar for UnfadingGreen Avatar for fargo116 Avatar for grindelwald Avatar for freeportguy2 Avatar for terrymahoney Avatar for trumpdog Avatar for george Avatar for jjrothery Avatar for Prof_B_in_LA Avatar for ABDUR Avatar for hawkseye Avatar for kingofbacon Avatar for darrtown Avatar for occamsrazor2 Avatar for jinnj Avatar for gibbous

Continue Discussion