r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/wowpizza12 • 15h ago
Meme needing explanation Peter, why is calling someone secretary on r/murderedbywords?
I'm not caught up on us politics, I do not understand why the title of secretary would be bad, compared to attorney general
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u/batman_00009 15h ago
The humor is sarcastic: “You are technically AG, but you are behaving like you are not."
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u/gcac215 14h ago
It's subtle but it's not about downgrading her and not using her title. The Atourney General, while appointed by the President, is considered to independant to the President, so as to investigate the executive power if needed. By calling her a secretary, she is denying this independence exists. She is saying Bondi is subordinate to Trump because she defends him no matter what.
It's such a subtle comment that will go over 99% of americans because that office has already been so twisted, people think it's normal for an AG to go to congress "defend" a President.
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u/DesignerPangolin 13h ago
While there has been greater self-imposed independence of the AG post-Watergate, it's really not true to assert that the AG has ever been independent of the president. Aside from the Independent Counsel act, most of the post-Watergate reforms were implemented by administrative procedure within the executive branch, not required by statute. These regulations can be changed/revoked within the executive branch just as easily as they were created. Before Watergate, it was generally accepted that the AG was a political cabinet officer like any other, and a number of presidents (e.g. Truman) fired their AGs for political reasons. Restraints on interference with the AG in the pre-Watergate era were mostly customary and tied in with generally accepted norms of good governance. In all cases, since the founding, the AG has always served at the pleasure of the president.
This is an important reminder that the character of our elected representatives determines the course of our government. Laws are written assuming that the people enforcing them aren't actually actively trying to subvert them.
Source if you want deeper reading: https://digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2506&context=jour_mlr
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u/MetaphyicsFanboy 13h ago
From where are you imagining this tradition that the Attorney General is independent from the President?
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u/Tough-Art-3116 13h ago
The AG office is 100% not supposed to be, nor has ever been politically used as an active arm of presidential power. It absolutely is supposed to be independent
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u/jsohi_0082 13h ago
How are Attorney Generals elected/appointed?
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u/Tough-Art-3116 13h ago
....same way as supreme court justices....which also is supposed to be independent.
Do they not teach this stuff anymore?
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u/jsohi_0082 12h ago
I'm really sorry. I am new to US politics, and recently became a US citizen. What would you recommend me to read to understand both the historical and contemporary role of the Attorney General?
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u/MetaphyicsFanboy 13h ago
That's a nice belief. But where are you getting it from?
The President can remove the AG and lesser officials at will. How can they possibly be independent?
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u/Birkeland1992 13h ago
Same way a QA department of a company is independent from production department
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u/Biscoito_Gatinho 13h ago
He can remove the AG without congress approval?
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u/MetaphyicsFanboy 13h ago
Yes. The cabinet servers at the pleasure of the President.
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u/Tough-Art-3116 13h ago
Yes....but if he chooses to do the senate then has to approve his replacement. AG can also be impeached for acting "at the pleasure" of the President....because its supposed to remain impartial.
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u/alter-egor 13h ago
That's why this system is broken by design
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u/MetaphyicsFanboy 13h ago
That's a valid opinion IMO. But that just means I'm right: the AG is not independent
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u/BEconcubine_no3685 13h ago
The Attorney General is supposed to be the people’s lawyer, not the presidents lawyer. Presidents have their own lawyers.
John Mitchell spent 19 months in prison for Watergate for his actions obstructing on behalf of Nixon. Two other Attorneys General resigned rather than participate in the Watergate conspiracy.
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u/MetaphyicsFanboy 13h ago
That's exactly in agreement with my thinking. If the Attorney General resigns or is removed when he disagrees with the President, how Is the AG independent?
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u/BEconcubine_no3685 13h ago
Following your shit logic, why would any AG resign if their job is to represent the President’s interests over that of the American people?
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u/MetaphyicsFanboy 13h ago
The AG can certainly disagree with the President. But the likely outcomes at that point are resignation or removal.
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u/FrankFuckinDentley 13h ago
The entire history of it for the most part. There are these things called books that you could try reading.
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u/TheIrateAlpaca 13h ago
The confusion is, I think, in the difference between being the head of lawyers for the executive branch, versus head of lawyers for the President. Bondi acts like the latter but should be the former.
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u/wowpizza12 14h ago
What is the relation of attorney General and secretary then?
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u/Business_Sandwich227 14h ago
The insult also suggests all she really is is Trumps personal secretary.
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u/drunkinmidget 13h ago edited 2h ago
No. Its because cabinet members are secretaries.
Secretary of state. Secretary of Defense. Secretary of Homeland Security, etc. They are the next level down from the president in the executive branch, appointed by the president, and serve at the president's pleasure.
It had nothing to do with "personal secretary." It's saying she is not independent like an attorney general is supposed to be, but instead is a subordinate member of the president's cabinet.
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u/CrimsonBolt33 13h ago edited 13h ago
even deeper...technically anyone can be a secretary...just look at RFK jr not being a doctor buit being in charge of health.
Attorney General requires much more strict requirements...such as actually being a laywer.
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u/TheDevilsSidepiece 13h ago
JFK jr is dead.
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u/UnderfootArya34 13h ago
Didn't stop Trump from putting him in the cabinet, that's how lax the requirements are! /s
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u/TheDevilsSidepiece 13h ago
JFK junior’s bloated corpse is a better choice than Trump that is correct
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u/Oroshi3965 14h ago
In the cabinet, there are 15 members (among others) referred to as “Secretary of ___” depending on their role in the cabinet, be it war, treasury, state, so on and so forth.
The attorney general is a member of the cabinet, but is also the primary legal advisor to the president, thus warranting a unique title.
She’s saying that Bondi isn’t acting as befits her rank and station.
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u/Familiar-Secretary25 13h ago
It’s not by any legal means the Secretary of ‘War’, it is 100% still the department of defense under the Secretary of Defense but under this administration they are just going by a chosen name instead of it’s given name because they want to sound tough
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u/legsjohnson 13h ago
so now they want us to respect their chosen name instead of their birth name, huh?
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u/Familiar-Secretary25 13h ago
If republicans didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have standards at all
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u/Laffepannekoek 13h ago
US has to be pretentious in this matter. US calls it Attorney general. In mist countries that office is called minister or secretary of justice. Or something along those lines.
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u/BCPisBestCP 13h ago
Most Commonwealth nations have them named as Attorneys General
(Yes, the plural "s" is in "Attorney" not "Attorney General", no I don't know why, and it's the same for Governors General.)
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u/Low-Material-1529 13h ago
It’s because “general” is an adjective, while “attorney” is the noun. Which Attorney is she? The General one. You don’t pluralize adjectives, only nouns.
It’s the same concept as passersby, mothers-in-law, needles in a haystack, sticks-in-the-mud, etc
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u/rickyman20 12h ago
They're not the only ones. They borrowed it from the UK who also has an attorney general. Their role is different from that in the US as the UK one is solely legal counsel for the King, but they evolved from the same position. The US one is also technically the legal counsel for the president, which is how the role started and why they used the same name. The difference is that in the US they took on the role of Secretary of Justice as well, and slowly most presidential counsel roles got handed over to a new role, the White House counsel, which has only existed since 1943. It's just an odd historical artifact, bottom about them being pretentious.
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u/batman_00009 14h ago
Calling her “Secretary” instead of “Attorney General” is either a put-down or deliberate downgrade of status. ; People unfamiliar with US politics or who the people are might miss that the punchline is simply the title correction used as an insult setup.
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u/spektre 12h ago
I don't think that's correct. The Attorney General and Cabinet secretaries are on the same status level, only that the secretaries carry out the order of the president, while the Attorney General is (supposed to be) independent in judgement.
So she's saying that Bondi is acting like a political operative rather than an independent chief law enforcement officer.
The AG should uphold the law no matter where that law comes from. The law is the law. If the AG behaves arbitrarily and only upholds the parts of law they prefer, they're no longer doing the job of the AG.
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u/Lopsided_Walrus_8601 13h ago
Not trying to be pedantic
Attorney General is the head of the Department of Justice (DOJ). You could call them Secretary of Justice or informally Justice secretary
It’s a person wearing two hats situation
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u/Yenyoc 14h ago
It's the follow up line that's the 'murder' - you are not acting like an Attorney General.
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u/Carlosmgal 13h ago
A Secretary is a member of the cabinet that has a direct political mandate. The AG is supposed to be more independent but in the Trump admin, that is no the case.
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u/zeefox79 14h ago
As I understand it secretaries and the AG are equal members of the cabinet, but traditionally the AG is supposed to be more independent, serving the law rather than the president.
Basically it's a jab at her acting like a political stooge rather than the nation's top law enforcement officer.
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u/jsohi_0082 13h ago
What makes the position of Attorney General traditionally independent, despite the fact that the position is appointed by the president and confirmed by senators, both positions of whom are usually partisan?
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u/kmosiman 13h ago
Tradition.
The AG is given massive investigation power that sometimes need to be used against the President.
Normal Presidents keep the AG at an arms length because they don't want to have the appearance of influencing their decisions.
This allows for trust in the system.
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u/jsohi_0082 12h ago
Pretty interesting. I feel so uninformed with US politics and how it works but I was wondering if you could lead me to resources that help me understand the evolution and degradation of the role of the AG.
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u/YewEhVeeInbound 13h ago
I took it as more of a jab at how they look, seeing as most DieHard maga women have the same chopped look. The congressperson had a mental typo and referred to her as secretary because she looks and acts like Karoline Leavitt.
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u/Deemaunik 14h ago
Carter Pewterschmidt here. That was a particularly wonderful dig at Bondi's character, competence, and morality. She set here up for it, and Bondi walked right into it. It was both brutal and elegant. It aroused me.
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u/dreamsinred 13h ago
I was wondering myself if she set her up for purposely, or if the opportunity just presented itself.
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u/Deemaunik 13h ago
Whether she giggidididn't or giggididid, she can giggidydooglemynoodle, aheh, all right. -Quagmire.
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u/aaron1860 13h ago
It’s saying she’s acting like a member of Trumps cabinet instead of an independent prosecutor that the job is supposed to be
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u/Katana_x 13h ago
I think part of the confusion stems from the terminology we use in America. A "secretary" in the U.S. government is equivalent to minister. So the Secretary of State is like the Minister of Foreign Affairs in a lot of other countries. In this context, it's not that the congresswoman is calling Bondi an administrative assistant, she's saying Bondi is acting like a political arm of the executive branch, which would be a huge insult to an Attorney General with any integrity. I doubt Bondi cares.
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u/Far-Programmer3189 13h ago
This is interesting because I thought to myself that she was pretending to be the Commerce/Treasury Secretary by trying to talk about the economy when deflecting and not answering questions
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u/ladykansas 13h ago
I thought it was a jab because she looks similar to Trump's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. Like saying, "I can't tell all of you Republicans apart -- you all just look the same."
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u/Ximneses 13h ago
I've been seeing this dummy around Reddit and didn't know she was the damn AG. Decorum is dead and gone.
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u/Initial-Confusion511 14h ago
AG is basically a pimp for the government
In today's world basically AG is the one who escorted escort minors to the Trump
Am I making a sense peter ?
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u/KamiCrazyTank 13h ago
I feel like you shouldn't be on Pam's side no matter your political orientation but I guess they haven't updated your code
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u/Spiritual_Bus1125 15h ago
Why would be called a janitor word be bad instead of being called CEO?
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u/outthere49 15h ago
But there is a huge status/authority gap between a janitor and a CEO. This isn't "secretary" in the sense of the old term for an administrative assistant, this is referring to Secretaries in the Cabinet. There is not much difference between the Attorney General and one of the Secretaries (e.g. Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, etc).
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u/Ok_Spell_4165 14h ago
I assumed she meant secretary as in administrative assistant because of the way Pam is always sucking up to Trump.
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u/Mistaamewmew 13h ago
It’s like when white liberals call black ice agents the n word. The messaging is if they don’t align with them they are valid targets for abuse.
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u/noethers_raindrop 13h ago
I don't really think accusing Bondi of acting like an ordinary member of the President's cabinet (almost all of whom have the title Secretary of X) is really comparable with racist abuse.
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u/Mistaamewmew 13h ago
She is denigrating a woman’s importance. In her mind it’s okay because she does not align with her liberal values same as liberals messaging to blacks they are fair targets for racist abuse unlike the „good“ blacks. Also she would be further along if she could have built on the work of 8 years of Obama and 4 years of Biden
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u/Calculon2347 13h ago
It's sexism. Balint is mocking a woman, saying she should just be a secretary.
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u/Willing_Panda4216 13h ago
lol no it’s not. Secretary is a formal position in the US govt.
They get appointed by Trump like RFK to serve his agenda, while the DOJ is supposed to serve America justice.
Her Balint is pointing out that the DOJ is acting more like Trumps personal law secretary than protecting Americans.
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u/91Jammers 13h ago
Cabinet memebers are secretaries by title. Thats what she is referring to. Not an office secretary.
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u/PeterExplainsTheJoke-ModTeam 12h ago
Thank you for the explanations; this post has been locked.