Sunday, October 22, 2017
Kelly's defense of Trump
The New Yorker comments on Kelly's defense of Trump, who was criticized by a congresswoman for his condolence call to wife of a fallen soldier ...
John Kelly and the Dangerous Moral Calculus of Working for Trump
[...] Kelly, who rarely speaks publicly, stepped into the briefing room yesterday to defend the President. The most newsworthy comments he made concerned Wilson, who he said was an “empty barrel” who had once turned a ceremony meant to commemorate the deaths of two F.B.I. officers killed in the line of duty into a celebration of her ability to steer tax dollars to her district ....
As was quickly reported, the video of Wilson’s nine-minute speech is online. Wilson did tell a story about how she; John Boehner, the House Speaker at the time; and Obama worked together to make sure that the building was named after the two slain F.B.I. agents in time for the event. She said nothing about securing funding (she was, in fact, not in Congress when the money was authorized) and nothing about “how she took care of her constituents.” She asked law-enforcement officials present to stand up “so we can applaud you and what you do,” adding, “we’re proud of you, we’re proud of your courage.” She then told the tragic story of the two agents who lost their lives. The speech bears no resemblance to the speech Kelly described. The White House chief of staff maligned a congresswoman, whose only crime seemed to be criticizing Trump, with a series of lies.
When a reporter at the White House on Friday asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders about the glaring discrepancy between Kelly’s account and the actual speech, she said that the White House stood by his remarks. “There was a lot of grandstanding,” she said. “He was stunned that she had taken that opportunity to make it about herself.” The reporter pressed: “He was wrong yesterday in talking about getting the money. The money was secured before she came into Congress.”
Sanders shot back with the kind of statement that would be normal in an authoritarian country, suggesting that Kelly’s previous military service placed him beyond criticism. “If you want to go after General Kelly, that’s up to you,” she said. “But I think that that—if you want to get into a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that that’s something highly inappropriate.”
No, it is not .....
I was watching the press briefing when Kelly spoke - it was just creepy - at the end, when reporters usually ask questions, Kelly refused to take questions from any reporters who didn't personally know a "gold star" family. Trump, with three generals in his administration, seems to be trying to overcompensate for his weakness by identifying himself with the military. Banana republic, here we come :(
More from The New Yorker: John Kelly and the Language of the Military Coup
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There's just something missing in Trump's constitution, a void. I don't even know if he's culpable for his constitution. Perhaps he was trying to act like a fully developed human being, which he is not. I don't think he is capable of empathy. The congresswoman bringing up his ineptitude as a human just generated another distraction. Trump's deficiency as a president and human is obvious to those who can see. What is frightening is the large percentage who don't see or don't care or both.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's the really depressing part - that so many people voted for him and still approve of the job he's doing.
ReplyDeleteThis defense for a president who famously avoided service in the Vietnam era because of a bone spur, but he can't remember which foot, or maybe it was both.
ReplyDeleteI saw in the news yesterday that Trump is thinking of replacing Janet Yellen as head of the Federal Reserve in February, and also trying to stack the 7 member board with his own people. This is where his hubris may burn him big time. So far the economy hasn't gone through any major upsets. But if he fixes what isn't broken and things go south, the big money interests who cynically supported him because he was the one most likely to advance their interests will turn on him in a heartbeat. That might be the best outcome at this point.
It does seem like he's trying to rig everything - he's been taking a personal interest in the choice of US attorney's in the places where law suits may be brought against him - New York and Florida - http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/19/trump-us-attorney-interviews-243962
ReplyDeleteHey, folks, remember Kelly and Gen. Mad Dog Mattis and perhaps, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (but definitely not Sundays) Rex Tillerson are, we have been assured, the adults who will protect us from the inanities of the elected president. The new Kelly/Sanders rule of no questions from anyone who has failed to be shot at for America is more lapel patriotism run amok. I am not sleeping better at night. And, btw, Congresswoman Wilson knew the Gold Star mother -- and her son -- through a long-standing relationship. The Congressperson is, in fact, one of the Select authorized to question the author of the Kelly Rule.
ReplyDeleteAnd, some more btw, how four GIs got killed in Niger (Benghazi! Benghazi!) us a deep, mysterious matter that is being fully investigated (trust us) by two agencies. The sprightly Sarah assures us that the White House will have no more to say about the events leading up to their deaths until the appropriate agencies have had enough time to do their work. At the same exact time, the White House wants to know whyinhell Mueller can't wrap it up.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's really discouraging that the guys like Kelly, the ones that were supposed to protect us from Trump, seem to be getting corrupted by him instead.
ReplyDeleteMy grandfather was in the army air corps in WWI and also served in WWII. He was in for 20 years but never made a big deal about it. We did get to go play bingo at the officers' club when we were kids, though :) I think the Trump administration's belief that military jobs are more worthy than other kinds of jobs is just wrong.
I'm not going to defend Kelly. I'm not sure whether he went into the briefing because he intended to take a bullet for Trump and said what he said on purpose or because he's as thoughtless as Trump himself.
ReplyDeleteLike many people I am suffering from Trump fatigue. I've reached the point where I don't comment anymore on him. I'm convinced that for the people who still defend him, there is nothing whatsoever that can be said against him and his people that will make a difference. There are no facts, there is no logic, there is no appeal to decency that will sway them even a little.
But in addition to that I am exhausted by the way people on the Left and the Right keep putting chips on their shoulders demanding that they be knocked off. Maybe I learned from all of those years in business that one has to try to focus on the essentials in order to get anything done. Maybe my downfall came from thinking that pure politics wasn't the real game all along. I feel now that we know Trump himself is the main problem and I want now for all of these daily outrages to fade into the background, like noise of construction outside fades into the background once one realizes that it's not car accidents one is hearing. I keep hoping that we will break through the clouds and see a small number of concrete problems that we can actually address. But instead we seem to find things that we treat like fresh outrages. It's exhausting. Trump is insane, and it's making everyone else insane, just as having an insane father makes the whole family insane. It's exhausting.
I agree that it's exhausting. It feels like he's been president for a decade instead of months. I take breaks when I let it go and try to concentrate on the good things still left. But then I come back to it because he is literally destroying that good stuff bit by bit and even if we can't save stuff, we should mark its destruction with outrage.
DeleteI can remember at the start of his term, he had the USDA take down from its website information animal rights groups used to track animal abuse in pet stores and other places. It's a small thing to most people and it didn't get much press, but every day now there's probably suffering caused by that one action. We can't just look away.
I don't need to be persuaded that Trump is working for the AntiChrist or that those in his administration are imperiling their immortal souls.
ReplyDeleteDemocrats must stop freaking out about Trump, define a few simple vital issues (we abhor the burdens on the middle class, we have a responsibility to the most vulnerable Americans, we are not wedded to the idea of a lily-white America, we cannot solve world problems without the help of our allies), and get out there and stay on message.
Democrats also need to start to coalesce around a national leader or group of leaders.
Easy to bash Trump, but he and his ilk will prevail unless Dems can quickly mount a viable opposition.
I agree that it's on the Democrats now. I think Congresswoman Wilson played into the chaos by getting into a pissing fight with Trump. As I've said before, the Democrats' disadvantage is that they went neoliberal and technocrat and abandoned their advocacy for the working class. Right now, New Jersey has a choice between a Christie Republican and a Democrat who's a Wall Street billionaire. The last Democrat NJ governor was a Wall Street billionaire. Good grief. The face of the Democratic party.
ReplyDeleteYeah. If we want to discuss the Democrats' fascination with their own identity validations and psychodramas, and their odd propensity for seizing upon otherwise unprepared candidates who are good on one famous issue, and their other social or psychological failings, I am up for it.
ReplyDeleteBut, and however, what the President of the United States does and what he fails to do is our responsibility as citizens. That is the way our system works; it does not allow for an ostrich option. Indeed, it can be argued that it was the sudden fright of practitioners of the ostrich option that led to our current mess. Also, all that he has done and will do will have to be undone or redone, so we need to know what it is. Also, his blinkered disciples may one day have the scales fall from their eyes, and it will become our job to explain to them where they are and how they got us there. Also, while we all (including I) get distracted by the insults de jour, his Cabinet clowns are doing terrible things, unobserved. And, also, he is about to turn the Federal Reserve into a reservoir of political hackery, which even Nixon never considered. And then you won't be happy when you travel abroad and are told they'll take bitcoin but not your stinkin' Yankee dollar. Just sayin'.
And finally, when they came for the undocumented, you weren't undocumented, so you said nothing. And they are coming for the refugees we haven't time to give a hearing, but you won't be headed home to be killed, so you say nothing. And when they come for the Dreamers, you won't be a Dreamer, so you will say nothing. And when they come for the opioid addicts, you won't be using opioids, so you will say nothing. And when they come for you there won't be anyone around to cry out.
Yeah. I am tired too. Too bad the bastards won't give us any time to rest.
And Rep. Wilson was not "playing into chaos" when she was riding with her friend (a Gold Star mother)and heard the pudgy guy drop another turd into the punch bowl. If you had been there, you would have mentioned it, too.
I think I could take Rep. Wilson more seriously if she wasn't wearing sequinned cowboy hats and looking like she was just off to Mardi Gras. There is something to be said for gravitas in an elected official, especially when we're talking about messages to the widows and orphans of dead soldiers. Someone in a clown hat criticizing Trump in his weird blond flat-top and spray-on tan says something about the circus that is American politix.
DeleteTom,
DeleteYeah, I agree with you. Congresswoman Wilson was standing up for her friend, the widow. Trump and Kelly saw her as a scapegoat that could be used to direct attention away from the real issue (or one of them) ... what the hell are the executive branch and the military doing running ops without the knowledge of congress?
Wilson's hats ... to quote the Yardbirds :) ....
DeleteCan you judge a man by the way he wears his hair?
Can you read his mind by the clothes that he wears?
Can you see a bad man by the pattern on his tie?
Well then Mister, you're a better man than I
Jean and Stanley,
ReplyDeleteAbout the Democrats - Trump is not their fault. Trump is the fault of the people who voted for him, the people who are so selfish and stupid that they created a candidate who promised to make their lives better at the expense of others, and a candidate who actually doesn't have the ability or the will to actually do what he promised them.
The Democrats *do* stand for things, the same things they have stood for for years .... saving the environment, protecting the rights of racial minorities, women, LGBT people, the poor, the elderly and children. They are for civil rights, for public education, for gun regulation, etc.
They cannot become the second Republican party and try to buy the votes of Trump supporters by appealing to their basest instincts of "me, me, me, and screw everyone else". We make it together or we don't make it. That is what the Dems stand for. You guys already know this.
All that's nice, Crystal, but a Democratic party that abandoned the working class for software monopolies and Wall Street hucksters is only a shell of its former self. The working class, without anyone caring, will wander off to who knows where, eventually Trump. It's all right to worry about "me,me,me" if no one else cares. The most culpable in voting Trump are the ones with financial security. That I can't abide.
ReplyDeleteIt's the Republicans who care about the rich. Trump's cabinet is full of them. His tax cuts will benefit them more than anyone else. The Democrats are the only ones speaking for the less fortunate. I don't feel sorry for the middle class - they're doing a lot better than I am.
ReplyDeleteBill Clinton had a lot less problem with "welfare reform" than I did. That's when I started to wonder what the hell is going on with the Democrats.
ReplyDeleteYeah, he was conservative for a Democrat.
ReplyDeleteBut there is no party other than the Dems that will speak up for poor. When the health care bill keeps resurfacing, it is they (and Susan Collins) who refuse to vote for it because it will gut Medicaid. When the tax cut will help the rich and to some degree the middle class, but will hurt the poorest, the Dems are against it. They are against the budget because it will cut programs that help the needy. They aren't perfect but they are the only ones trying to protect the less fortunate.
"But there is no party other than the Dems that will speak up for poor." I think you are right, Crystal, at least no party that can be taken seriously as a major player. I wonder what happened to the American Catholic church, too. Back in my youth they used to take seriously the "preferential option for the poor". I think there are some people who engage in some magical thinking about rising tides floating all boats, and that kind of thing.
DeleteI think the Dems and even Republicans who say *not Trump* need to forget about the hard core Trump supporters. They are never going to be anything else, and it's better just to write them off and concentrate on engaging people who haven't killed their reasoning abilities.
Hi Katherine. The church is really conflicted. They are traditionally for the poor and marginalized, but the hierarchy has aligned with the wealthy and bigoted instead. It was depressing to see Cardinal Dolan sucking up to Paul Ryan at the recent Al Smith dinner.
ReplyDelete"I think the Dems and even Republicans who say *not Trump* need to forget about the hard core Trump supporters. They are never going to be anything else, and it's better just to write them off and concentrate on engaging people who haven't killed their reasoning abilities."
ReplyDeleteHmm. Well, that completely ignores the fact that
a lot of Trump supporters are poor whites who were historically ... Democrats!
Why Trump? Because Trump makes promises to bring back manufacturing jobs, coal power, cut down in job off shoring, prevent illegal immigrants from taking their jobs, and create work improving infrastructure.
He's not going to do it, of course, but this is the message labor needs to hear from Democrats.
Democrats have been losing labor votes since 1968. Democratic candidates have come increasingly from the wealthy classes or the academy. Their idea of supporting labor is to put people on the dole, give them an entitlement program.
Bernie and Uncle Joe Biden seem to understand Labor better than most Democrats. I keep looking for a candidate who feels comfortable around labor. But they seem thin on the ground.
Jean, I would agree that a candidate needs to be pro-labor. But those old time manufacturing jobs aren't coming back, coal is dying because it is becoming no longer economically viable, and immigrants are a handy scapegoat to beat for things that were happening anyway. Anybody who promises to roll that stuff back is a demigogue, which we know Trump is. I totally wish Biden were 20 years, even 10 years, younger. Even if was a candidate now, I would vote for him. But that won't happen. I am afraid the Dems' next candidate will be someone young and good looking for tv cameras, but who is a one-trick pony without enough political experience to get anything done. And whom the Republican machine will make mincemeat out of. I really hope people are smarter than that but I'm not holding my breath.
DeleteDemocrats are good for labor. They support unions and laws that protect employees. And the future of labor is in jobs that are green and high tech, not the failed areas like coal that Trump is promising to bring back. As much as some voters would like to return to the past, there really is no going backwards in manufacturing and other industries.
ReplyDeleteWhen talking about unions in the United States, it is important to realize you are talking about Sen-Sen, blacksmith shops and rotary phones. This moving map shows what I mean:
ReplyDeleteww.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/23/385843576/50-years-of-shrinking-union-membership-in-one-map
The shrinkage in membership is partly a result of Ds taking union support for granted but mostly the result of management learning how to keep employees more frightened of losing their jobs than angry about being exploited.
Yes, fear, contract workers, temps, off shoring jobs. 70 percent of college profs are adjuncts. Where were Democrat voices for labor when this was going on? Oh, giving speeches for a million dollars a pop.
DeleteThe Democrats were doing things like questioning and voting against Gosuch for his ruling in the case of the frozen trucker against his bosses ... The trucker case, and why it matters
ReplyDelete