We're down to Mattis, I suppose - By Jennifer Rubin
Republicans and Democrats alike have been deluding themselves for some time about White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly. They were certain that Kelly was a “grown-up” who understood that the president the American people elected was hobbled — morally, intellectually, temperamentally — and it was Kelly’s job to steer the ship of state away from the rocks. He wouldn’t lie to the American people as President Trump did, these Kelly fans believed.
Recognition is now sinking in that Kelly is not so different than all the other politicians and officials who come in contact with Trump. To serve him requires suspension of integrity, and therefore those who serve become morally corrupted. (The sole exception to this seems to be Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who from day one simply refused to act as Trump’s political flack.) One can hear a palpable sense of sadness after last week’s events, a sense of disillusionment.
After Kelly came out to play defense for Trump over his handling of calls to Gold Star families, smeared Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.) and refused to apologize, launched a Trumpian soliloquy about the good old days (when women were “sacred,” but not in the workforce) and elevated the moral stature of service members over mere civilians, it was hard to argue he was anything more than a Trump enabler.
Susan Glasser of Politico appearing on “Face the Nation” observed, “We’re not surprised Donald Trump behaved this way because it’s very consistent with what we’ve seen from President Trump throughout not only his presidency but his campaign. … I think it’s more surprising what we saw in a way from General Kelly. We learned more. One of the things that’s been apparent over the last couple of months that this underscored is that it remains Donald Trump’s White House and not John Kelly’s White House, even if he has imposed more discipline and more of a process, number one.
She added, “We saw that General Kelly, this week, shares more of Donald Trump’s agenda than we realized. … I found General Kelly’s comment to be surprising and even puzzling that he would have brought up in the same commentary about this incident with the Gold Star families this notion that in the good old days women were sacred.” She noted, “A lot of people have talked about the irony of working for a president who has been accused of this kind of behavior.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/10/23/were-down-to-mattis-i-suppose/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-d%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.9ba5d726bbdd
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