John Kelly Can Serve His Country Now

[babylonsister]

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2017/9/2/04449/64715

John Kelly Can Serve His Country Now

by BooMan
Sat Sep 2nd, 2017 at 12:44:49 AM EST


The president is a hard man to serve:

President Trump was in an especially ornery mood after staff members gently suggested he refrain from injecting politics into day-to-day issues of governing after last month’s raucous rally in Arizona, and he responded by lashing out at the most senior aide in his presence.

It happened to be his new chief of staff, John F. Kelly.

Mr. Kelly, the former Marine general brought in five weeks ago as the successor to Reince Priebus, reacted calmly, but he later told other White House staff members that he had never been spoken to like that during 35 years of serving his country. In the future, he said, he would not abide such treatment, according to three people familiar with the exchange.

I will be mildly surprised if Kelly lasts to the end of the month. I don’t see the point in what he is trying to do, and I doubt he’ll be able to see any point in it for much longer. He can’t save this administration or even keep it afloat. And I don’t think Trump will stop disrespecting him in front of the staff, so unless he enjoys being treated like Reince Priebus he’s going to take a walk or get himself fired before too much longer.

Things might be different if the administration were not taking on water faster than Kelly can bail it out, or if September were not set up as a crucible custom-designed to destroy the illusions of Republicans and Trump supporters everywhere. But playtime is over and the grim waiter has brought the check. Failure will begin to roll down like waters, and haplessness like a mighty stream. Brother shall deliver up brother, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause their political death.

Through it all, for as long as he lasts, Kelly will vainly try to steer the ship away from the shoals, and he’ll take the blame for errors not of his making and decisions made against his advice.

If he’s a patriot and doing this because the situation is so dangerous, he should focus on only two things: protecting the country’s credit rating and keeping us out of a shooting war with North Korea or anyone else. But, really, when he leaves he should explain to the whole country what peril we are in and how urgently necessary it is to remove the president from power.

That’s the best and only way he can really serve his country now.

[Warpy]

1. Oh, I think he's already doing it. I credit him with

giving both Bannon and Gorka the boot. The former was a grifter and the latter an intellectual fraud and Kelly would have spotted both within 5 minutes. I don't agree with the man on most things but I find him intelligent and with a decent instinct regarding people.

He also knows what Dumpster Fire is, but he's got a knee jerk reaction to salute the flag and the CIC, so he's doing his best to stabilize a completely unstable man. Whether or not he realizes it's an impossible task at some point is the real question here.

In the meantime, I think he's going to continue to try to isolate Dump from all the real lunatics who crowded around him. He's still got Miller and a few flunkies who have been wise enough to stay in the shadows to go.