John Kelly’s half-assed, just-the-tip critique of Donald Trump on Wednesday night was too little, too late, and too lame from the retired Marine Corps general turned Everything Trump Touches Dies poster boy.
At best, the former White House chief of staff displayed an l’esprit de l'escalier that is insufficient for the gravity of the moment. At worst, he looked like one more ex-Trump chickenshit in a barnyard full of them.
How Trump draws in these men and women of solid military and business careers and spits them out as moral eunuchs is a mystery. Their silence and their denial make me question whether they ever took seriously the military principles they swore to uphold. Sure, Kelly’s late, limping arrival on the side of truth is a small relief, but the obvious question is, “Where the fuck have you been, John?”
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Kelly, like so many other bit players in the Trumperdammerung cycle, had until now shown all the signs of Stockholm Syndrome. He seemed to cling to some vague hope of redemption and reconnection to Trump. Like so many before him, even after they’ve been fired, humiliated, and cast into the outer darkness, he’d mostly remained tight-lipped. Some of it is fear of his tweets and the abuse mob that follows them. Some still dream of regaining some ability to influence the Beast himself. Some of them just want a job after all this ends and try to stealthily pretend they barely worked at the White House, and instead did something respectable, like disinfecting porn sets, marketing reverse mortgages, or running Ponzi schemes.
Not that John Kelly covered himself in glory as White House chief of staff. He killed off immigration reform and a DACA deal. He defended the wrong side in the Civil War and smeared a black congresswoman in the process.
He was one of the architects of the Trump policy of separating the children of undocumented immigrants from their parents and later profited handsomely off that policy by grabbing a coveted board seat with one of the contractors DHS had hired to carry it out. Far from being the adult in the room, Kelly ended his tenure as just one more enabler.
Kelly must have known how remaining silent about Trump reflected on him. Kelly wasn’t some GS-nothing. He was there, in the White House, in the West Wing, and in the Oval Office with an up-close view of Trump’s corrupt intent, mental infirmity, and ravenous ego hole in need of continuous filling. Kelly knew the dangers this man posed and, with an eye on his military pension and future job opportunities, he kept his mouth shut.
This week, he chose to open his truth valve a bit and speak more freely about Donald Trump’s shambolic leadership style and his unconscionable treatment of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman.
“He did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave,” Kelly said of Vindman. “He went and told his boss what he just heard” about Trump’s infamous “perfect call,” which Kelly rightly described as “tantamount to hearing 'an illegal order.”
That was like a red cape to a raging bull, and Trump wasted no time in trashing “his” general, and longest-serving chief of staff:
Look, I’m glad Kelly spoke out for Vindman, however belatedly. In the face of Trump’s abusive and threatening behavior, it’s good to see a retired flag officer standing tall for the independence of the services, and noting that Vindman was a wronged party. Current members of the Army and the Joint Chiefs should speak out about command interference and political vengeance by Trump.
What Kelly missed, though, was how terrible Vindman’s actions made his own look.
Alexander Vindman showed more balls in one day than John Kelly ever has when it comes to Trump.
Vindman did not nod and wink about Trump. He didn’t whisper it over drinks at the Hay-Adams to reporters. He didn’t mutter into his drink about that sumbitch. No, Vindman did something.
It was Vindman who followed the rules, reported Trump’s call to his superiors and then obeyed a lawful and appropriate subpoena before putting his hand up to swear to tell the truth to Congress—and then delivered it.
It was Vindman who took the full blast of the president’s wrath and endured the abuse from the Trump Twitter mob.
Vindman did it knowing full well he’d be in Trump’s sights, well, forever. He knew he’d always be a part of the narrative of Trumpian conspiracy-mongering and have to endure being accused of everything from being a “deep state” Soros sleeper agent to a foreign spy. He did it knowing he’d put his promotion to colonel on the line, and his career in the Army in immediate jeopardy, all to do the right thing.
Vindman saw something and said something. Kelly saw plenty, and kept it to himself for more than two years.
If you’re inside the White House claiming to be a grown-up, for some reason, or a calming factor and nothing ever changes, reconsider the predicates of your argument, for they are quite patently insufficient.
The ship of state is rudderless, and its crew members are fanatics, one and all, grubby little ass-kissers, balls-washers, and jock-sniffers all telling Donald Trump he is the tallest, thinnest, smartest, and sexiest man to ever hold the Office of the President. We expect nothing more than their silence, or their lies.
We expected more of a man like Kelly.
In the era of Trump, silence gives assent. Reticence gives permission. Enabling Trump makes you a co-conspirator to the destruction of the rule of law, the security of our nation, and the dissolution of the norms and institutions that shaped this nation.
John Kelly is no exception.
