Who changed the rules?

From the AP, via Military.com:

Special Operators to Anti-Obama Groups: Zip It

WASHINGTON -- A group of retired special operations and CIA officers who claim President Barack Obama revealed secret missions and turned the killing of Osama bin Laden into a campaign centerpiece are coming under criticism from some of their own.
Some special operations officers say the activist veterans are breaking a sacred military creed: respect for the commander in chief.

"This is an unprofessional, shameful action on the part of the operators that appear in the video, period," U.S. Army Special Forces Maj. Fernando Lujan wrote on his Facebook page, to a chorus of approval from colleagues.

A Green Beret who returned last year from Afghanistan, Lujan says that attaching the title of special operator with any political campaign is "in violation of everything we've been taught, and the opposite of what we should be doing, which is being quiet professionals."

Correct me if I am wrong, but what violates everything they've been taught is for active duty soldiers to shamelessly flack for the president in the middle of a campaign. The idea that former soldiers have a duty to stay out of politics would come as a suprise to . . . well, everyone from George Washington to Wesley Clark. If there is some special rule for "special" forces, then I've never heard about it.

But this doesn't look good:

"I don't take these folks too seriously," President Barack Obama told the newspaper The Virginian-Pilot on Monday. "One of their members is a birther who denies I was born here, despite evidence to the contrary." Special Ops OPSEC member ret. Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, who appears in the group's film, has publicly questioned Obama's birth in Hawaii.

Note to Republicans: be careful about recycling your key personnel. If one of your attacking points winds up discredited, then it's best not to have that set of activists headline your other causes.