the president of the leadership flens on civil rights, retired general wesley clark and lawrence tribes back with us, a constitutional law professor at harvard. many ways to come at this. general clark, let's start just down the middle. is this a good idea for the military to be called upon to do something that congress and the president otherwise can't agree how to do? >> i think it's a really bad thing for the united states armed forces to be dragged into this. we're nonpolitical. we'll do whatever the commander in chief orders us to do. if it's a legal order. the lawyers are going to argue about that, but whether it's legal or not, ultimately it's political and the men and women in uniform understand it. they're being used for an obvious political -- partisan political purpose here. it's going to hurt. >> so your view is, even if it were potentially lawful, i mean, a court might ultimately have to rule on it, it's just not the place for the military to be sort of the tiebreaker on a shutdown fight of this magnitude? >> that's exactly right. >> and vinita, is it legal? >> look, i thi