GEN. JOHN KELLY

When Gen. John Kelly was chosen to head Homeland Security, I was relieved, but that was premature.  He started to deport illegals.  Supposedly he was to concentrate on illegals who are criminals, but he went after low-hanging fruit - mothers of American born children.  How could he do this?  I thought we weren't going to breakup families?  Well one had been convicted of shoplifting a decade or more before, but was clean since.  Why didn't they deport her when she was convicted of shoplifting?

Then it occurred to me that most military officers are very conservative.  I used to say 90% are that way, but others have said I am too optimistic.

It also occurred to me that for someone who sent young men off to battle and possibly be killed or accrue life-changing injuries, maybe separating mothers from their children isn't so hard.  I even heard they looked into deporting the children along with the mother.! Aren't they all heart?

So I was happy when Kelly was chosen to be President Trump's new Chief Of Staff.  It got him out of Homeland Security where he turned out not to be a good fit, and I thought that Chief Of Staff was a position where he might do some good in getting some order into the Presidency.  I do think he did some of that, and I bet it wasn't easy.

Unfortunately President Trump chose to call the mother of  Sgt. La David Johnson who was mysteriously killed in Niger along with three other sergeants.  This is not the sort of thing Trump does well and sure enough the mother, her parents and Fl Rep. Frederica Wilson took offense at Trump's well meaning but botched attempt at consolation..  Rep. Frederica, who was in the car and heard the conversation because it was on speaker phone, was interviewed on TV and was indignant at Trump's failed attempt quoting part of what Trump said.  Her comment was backed up by a grandparent of Sgt. Johnson.

Why was Frederica in the car?  She had founded an organization called 5000 Roll Models that is a dropout prevention program for minority boys and Sgt Johnson was one of her successes.  As a result she became close to the family.

Well then Gen. Kelly decided to get into the act because the President made things worse by criticizing Rep Wilson and mentioned Gen. Kelly's dead son and former President Obama.

Gen. Kelly started out all right and was doing what I expected him to do when all  of a sudden he went into a tirade over Rep. Wilson:

Kelly also blasted Democratic Rep. Frederica S. Wilson for listening in and politicizing the call that Trump had made.

“It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me,” he said, adding that the death of someone serving their country in the military was sacred*

He compared her to an empty barrel.  Some trying to defend Gen Kelly said that he may not know the history of the family and Rep. Wilson.  Well I knew and I thought that a general would want to know the facts before shooting off his mouth.

Also Gen. Kelly, I'm sure inadvertently, said that a lot of things were sacred but no longer.  In these he mentioned women used to be sacred (ah, that is what he said) but no longer .  I'm not sure he knew he was taking a swipe at President Trump.

Then somehow, Gen. Kelly reached into his inner Trump and
It turns out that Kelly was mistaken about Wilson. He attacked her for praising her own role in securing funding for a new FBI building in her district. In fact, she had only taken credit for helping to name it, and she did so in a humble and bipartisan way.**

Well, Rep. Wilson wouldn't back down and neither would Gen. Kelly, and naturally bully Trump wasn't helping (and, as we have come to expect, still isn't).  What a mess when something started out with the intent of consolation

In my experience high level military officers are diplomatic, especially Generals and Admirals ( Michael Flynn is an exception), and I am not sure why Gen Kelly exploded without knowing the facts.  Perhaps because President Trump brought Gen. Kelly's son, killed on duty, into the picture?  Clearly Gen. Kelly is not the man I thought he was.

Did I mention that Rep. Wilson is an African American woman.  "Get in the back of the bus and shut up!"

* http://nypost.com/2017/10/19/kelly-defends-trumps-call-to-gold-star-widow/
https://twitter.com/repwilson?lang=en
** https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/20/john-kelly-changed-the-game-commentary.html