Sean Spicer at Harvard's Kennedy School

Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer became the butt of a "Saturday Night Live" skit series in which he was hilariously played by Melissa McCarthy -- on top of being the butt of snarky critiques of his press conferences by those very same reporters he had to face.   And pretend that it didn't bother him to be poked fun at -- and to be portrayed on SNL by a woman.

Who knows what pain may be felt underneath that seemingly thick skin he feigns in public"    But it all did land Sean a pretty good gig -- a prestigious fellowship at the Institute of Politics at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government this fall.  This is part of a series of bringing in people from the real world of experience to round out the academic teachers for these Kennedy Center students.

So how's the Old Spice doing?    Not so well.   As reported by HuffPost's Ashley Feinberg, this "idiotic kabuki of broadmindedness" is supposed to be "engaging student in discourse on topical issues of today."   And Spicer brings a look at the inner workings of White House communications.

But, after interviewing a number of the students, Feinberg says that Spicer's discourse is nothing but "a defense of every waking moment he served.  He is a flack once more, only this time for himself."

Supposedly engaging the students in both formal and informal discussions on what he has digested from his time at the White House, one student told Feinberg:  "He's incredibly inarticulate, so it was really difficult to take any sort of notes."

The Kennedy School does feature mostly a liberal student body, so they may not have given Spicer the benefit of doubt.   But their comments seem hard to refute.  For example, he seemed to have set of talking points that he would circle back to, regardless of the question asked.

Some of his favorite talking points seemed to be:   Benghazi, media bias toward Trump, and Obama's [broken] "promise that you could keep your own doctor," in response to any question about the Affordable Care Act.   When asked how he felt about having to lie for the president, his answer was:

"I'm a spokesperson for the president, and my job is to say what he wants me to say."

And his explanation of "alternate facts"?   "An alternative fact is 3+1= 4 or 4+0=4.   Those are alternative facts.  A lie is 3+2=4.  Alternative facts are legitimate tools to use in politics."

But of course, that's not how "alternative facts" came into being.  It was Kellyanne Conway's inimitable spin on some obvious lying by one of the Trump team  -- not, as Sean tries to spin, just different ways of saying the same thing.

Perhaps one of the most telling moments was his reply to a student who asked what was the coolest moment of his time in the White House.  Here's his reply:

"The coolest moment as press secretary was having the New England Patriots all standing in my office waiting to go meet the president.   When I was growing up, I had to sit in the middle bleachers and watch them from the stadium.  Now I have the whole starting lineup in my office and got to take a selfie with them before they met Trump."

Wow!    Not being able to chat with some world leader.   Or being on Air Force One heading to a world summit with the president.   Sean's just a 12 year old good old boy, awestruck by having his favorite football team in his office and getting to take a selfie with them.   Well, of course.   This is the Trump White House, after all, not John Kennedy's or Barack Obama's White House.

So Ashely Feinberg concludes with some quotes from students about what they were getting out of the time with Spicer:

"I learned that the media was not misrepresenting him in how they were talking about him six months ago."

"I was kind of expecting him to be better than how he was portrayed through the press, but he was pretty much just as slimy and weaselly as I'd thought he was."

Pretty brutal.   But, then, she asked.   And they told their truth.

Poor, Sean.    That's what I kept saying when he was trying to defend the indefensible.   Maybe I shouldn't have worried about him.   Maybe he is really just simple enough and clueless enough not to know he's in way over his head -- and being ridiculed for it.

Ralph

Budget deficits and GOP duplicity

John Harwood of CNBC says that Congress is "speeding toward a budget plan that, in the name of cutting taxes, lets the government collect $1,5 trillion [with a T] less revenue for the next 10 years."

The problem is, he explains, that we need more revenue.  One obvious problem is that millions more Baby Boomer Americans will retire each year and require Social Security and Medicare.   The Congressional Budget Office projects a deficit for 2018 of $487 billion, and is expected to rise to triple that by 2027.

Harwood says:  "Already Social Security and Medicare comprise about 40 percent of federal spending and 8 percent of the economy.  The only way for those numbers to go is up.

"In 2017, 45 million Americans receive Social Security retirement checks. . . . By 2027 -- the end of the 10 year period in which the budget would take in $1.5 trillion less -- 60 million will receive [those checks]. . . .  By 2033, 77 million Americans will be eligible for Social Security.  Because life expectancy keeps rising, a growing share of them will be over 85, the age group requiring the costliest health services. . . .  And because Baby Boomers had fewer children than their parents, the number of tax-paying workers supporting each retiree will drop from 2.8 to 2.1."

None of these frightening statistics even address our pressing need for infrastructure investments, which are vast and increasing.  "Federal spending and taxes will have to grow significantly.   This is not a statement of political values.  It's a reflection of basic realities," writes Paul Van de Water, an analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

So what are the Republicans doing about it in their budget proposals?   Lost in a world of "tax cut fantasy."    They still cling to the disproved mantra that cutting taxes on the wealthy prompts investments that spur the economy to grow -- and tax cuts pay for themselves, and more.

Back to Harwood, who writes:  "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin claims increased growth will create so much new tax revenue that it will reduce deficits and help pay down the nation's $20 trillion debt. . . .  Yet mainstream economists in both parties, citing evidence of recent decades, say growth won't recoup all the lost revenue.

"Greg Mankiw of Harvard, a top economic advisor to President George W. Bush, once described those who say tax cuts will pay for themselves and more through growth as 'charlatans and cranks.'  Glenn Hubbard of Columbia, another top Bush advisor, estimates that individual tax rate cuts might generate enough to cover 30 percent of lost revenue, corporate cuts around 50 percent.

[Harwood continues]  "If so, GOP tax and budget plans would require the government — already projected to borrow another $10 trillion over the next 10 years — to borrow even more as Baby Boomers draw their checks. If the economics profession proves more accurate than Trump, the national debt will grow higher as the economy grows, not lower. . . . 

"The Senate last week voted to let tax cuts create higher deficits. If the House goes along, the GOP tax-and-budget framework will rely on highly speculative revenue projections to finance spending obligations that will keep growing as a matter of demographic certainty.

"'This is wishful thinking replacing responsible budgeting,' says Maya Macguineas, who directs the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.  'It's going to end us up with a mountain of debt.'"

*     *     *     *     *

Republicans call the Democrats the party of "tax and spend."   The Republicans have become the party of "tax cuts and deficits."   Their promise of stimulating growth with tax cuts just doesn't work out -- over and over again.   Sure, it stimulates some . . . but, over time, never enough to cover the tax cuts.

You know what they say about people who keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.    And, to make it worse, we actually have a certifiable president who has trouble distinguishing reality from his own thoughts.

Once again, we'll have to elect a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress to bail the country out of a huge budget deficit and debt.   The cycle repeats.  Let's hope we can survive it this time.

Ralph

Appeals court overrules Trump ideologue appointee on abortion rights of immigrant

I've railed against some of Trump's cabinet appointees who either know nothing about the departments they've been put in charge of (DeVos, Peery, Carson) -- or some who know enough to destroy them (Pruitt, Price, Zinke).

We're now beginning to hear about dangerous appointees lower down, the assistant secretaries or the heads of subcabinet agencies.   Like a woman who came directly from a high-level chemical industry position, who is now re-writing EPA policies to deregulate environmentally toxic chemicals, some of which pose serious health risks to humans.  Then there's the latest outrage, Scott Lloyd, the head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement,

Currently a 17 year old undocumented immigrant is being held in a Texas detention center by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.   After she was taken into custody a few weeks ago, she discovered that she is pregnant.  An unaccompanied minor, she has followed Texas state law and has obtained a judge's waiver that allows her to obtain an abortion.   All done perfectly legally, following the procedures set up by the law.

Except that the head of the agency that has her confined to a detention center, Scott Lloyd, happens to be an anti-abortion zealot.  He and his staff have so far refused to allow the young woman in their custody to obtain the legally authorized abortion -- claiming that they would be "facilitating" an action contrary to their mission of "promoting child birth and fetal life."

Even though they are physically preventing her from leaving the detention center to have the abortion, they argue that they are not placing an "undue burden" on her -- the very low legal bar that, even in Texas, keeps a few abortion facilities operating.   Their reason why there is no "undue burden?   I kid you not -- they say she can always go back where she came from and get an abortion there.   But "where she came from" is a Central American country that criminalizes abortions.

There is some urgency if she is to be allowed the abortion.   It has taken over a month to get to this point, obtaining the waiver and then the court process;  and her pregnancy is now estimated at 17 to 18 weeks.   Texas law bans abortions after 20 weeks.

So where does it stand?   The ACLU has taken her case and got a judgment from an appeals court that ruled that she must be allowed to have the abortion here.  A three judge panel from that court originally gave the government until October 31st to find a "sponsor" so that the government does not have to make the arrangements.  But they have already rejected two proposed sponsors.

The ACLU requested a hearing before the full Appeals Court, and they affirmed the permission and removed the other clause about seeking a sponsor.   The full court will not allow the government to "run out the clock," as it seemed to be doing.

We are a deeply divided country on the moral questions about abortion and whether it should be legal.   But in our current law it is still legal in the U.S., with some limits.   And yet a woman in government custody was being deprived of her rights within those limits, which could have expired with the state's delays.

As a sidelight, they claim they couldn't transport her to have an abortion;  but they had no qualms about transporting her to a "pregnancy center" to be counseled and coerced about not having an abortion.

This is a blatant example of individuals misusing their power to impose their own beliefs to subvert the law and a person's rights under that law.

It takes us one more step toward autocracy.   In our case, it seems to be a weird Trumpian blend of oligarchy and theocracy -- but in any case an autocracy that is eroding our democracy in the direction of totalitarianism.

Ralph

Update 10-25-17.  Following the Appeals Court directive to the government to stop blocking this young woman's legal right, she was allowed to have the procedure.   A senior staff attorney for the ACLU gave this statement:
"Justice prevailed today for Jane Doe.  But make no mistake about it, the Administration's efforts to interfere in women's decisions won't stop with Jane.  With this case we have seen the astonishing lengths this administration will go to block women from abortion care.  We will not stop fighting until we have justice for every woman like Jane."

Gen. Kelly, too, now tarnished by Trump

Jennifer Rubin, the "conservative voice" at the Washington Post and frequent guest news analyst on MSNBC, is someone I respect and admire.   The only problem is that it's hard to see why she's considered a conservative voice.  She's strongly and dismissively anti-Trump, and I've rarely thought she sounded much different from the liberal anchors interviewing her.  I guess we've lost sight of that wing of conservatism that doesn't sound so far-out radical.

Nevertheless, she does write a blog for WaPo called "The Right Turn," and she previously wrote for The Weekly Standard.   So she is a good one to give us what I hope will be the last word we need to consider on Trump's muffed attempt to console a Gold Star widow and Gen. Kelly's botched attempt to clean up his mess.  Her article is titled "We're down to Mattis, I guess."

She's referring to the hope that was expressed just a short time back that the trio of Sec. of State Tillerson, Sec. of Defense Mattis, and Chief of Staff Kelly were the ones who would provide "adult supervision" for Trump's White House.  And we all felt some relief that the world might not be in quite so much danger as we feared.

National Security Adviser Gen. McMaster, originally included among the adults, did himself harm weeks back when he had to go before the news cameras and try to clear up another Trump mess (I can't even remember which one now) -- and it didn't go too well for him.   He's kept a very low profile since then.   And Tillerson tried, but couldn't avoid, getting pitted against his boss Trump when their public statements about talking with the North Koreans contradicted each other.  And then, to make matters worse, someone  leaked that Tillerson had once called Trump a "moron," and Trump retaliated (by tweet, of course) that he'd beat Tillerson in an IQ test.

And now Kelly joins the ranks of those who gets too involved with Donald Trump and suffer the fate of becoming tarnished themselves.  Witness Tillerson, McMaster, and now Kelly -- thus the title:  "We're down to Mattis, I guess."

How has Gen. Mattis managed to stay clean?   As someone explained, as Secretary of Defense, he is not physically located in the White House but over at the Pentagon and thus has less contact.   In fact, he tends not to get involved with any White House issues other than those involving Defense.   Which also means that, although he's definitely an adult, he's not around to give the daily/hourly supervision.

So what further did Jennifer have to say?   Here are some excerpts:

*     *     *     *     *

"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. . . .  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 . . . .  [But Kelly's disappointing performance underscored] . . . 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 . . . .'

[Jennifer Rubin continues]  ". . . . Kelly’s fall from grace was swift and senseless. It was all so unnecessary; he need not have gone out to spin for the president.  The verdict on Kelly was remarkably negative, whether it was retired Gen. David Petraeus musing that Kelly was no doubt trying to figure out how to turn down the volume, or longtime GOP political strategist Matthew Dowd -- [who said] . . . '[D]oes [Kelly] know who he works for? He talks about the sacredness of Gold Star families and [yet] . . . he works for a guy that attacked Gold Star families and attacked John McCain as a prisoner. . . . He says we lost the sacredness of religion, and he works for somebody that wanted to ban Muslims.'

[And I might add that, as head of Homeland Security, Kelly was all in on enforcing Trump's insanely precipitous, first travel ban. -- RR]

[Rubin]: "So from adult day-care shift supervisor to enabler in a short week, Kelly sacrificed a good deal of his utility to the president for nothing. [and] . . . undercut his own stature as a guarantor of our democratic norms. . . .

"Those harboring unrealistic expectations about Kelly have learned once again: None of Trump’s advisers can make up for the deficits of this president; and with a lonely exception of Mattis, all of them look worse for having tried."

*     *     *     *     *

Despite his not being in the daily White House mix, there's still hope for Mattis standing firm for adult behavior.   When Trump decided to abolish Obama's plan to allow transgender troops to serve openly, Mattis employed the old tactic of not contradicting the boss but just slow-walking it, setting up a study commission to come up with a plan for implementation, and then letting it sort of get lost in the bureaucracy, at least for now.

I think we can assume that, since Kelly has not by now apologized for his false accusation against Rep. Wilson, he will not do so.   They did float the lame excuse that the video only showed her formal speech, not all the other things she said during other activities of the day, thus implying that she did say what he claimed, just not from the podium.

So be it.  The damage has been done.  We have a pretty good measure of Trump, who will  never apologize for anything, ever.  And now we see what a tarnished Kelly will do.    So let's move on . . . without the Kelly comfort, which we now know couldn't last.   Or if he tried, then he wouldn't last.

Better to have a tarnished Kelly than whoever could be persuaded to take Kelly's place.

Ralph

Jay Bookman's insight on Trump

Yes, I'm tired of the daily flood of Trump news, too.   But my favorite columnist in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jay Bookman, wrote something about Trump's compulsory fights -- including with now a second Gold Star family -- that adds an important insight about President Trump.

Bookman begins by giving the gist of what Trump says, and what those hearing his call to the widow of La David Johnson said, about the phone call.  Then he writes:

*     *     *     *     *

"I think it's plausible, even highly likely, that both parties are honestly describing their side of what had to be an emotionally difficult conversation.

"Every president makes these calls to grieving families;  every president dreads them.  Trump may have tried to express his sincere condolences and sympathy, while his native inability to empathize with others meant that it came across as awkward and insincere.  Put another way, Trump's intentions were probably honorable, even if his execution was poor.   To that degree, his frustrations and anger at media coverage are understandable.

"That said, however, it was Trump and only Trump who turned this whole thing into such a politicized mess. . . .  [when he responded to reporters' questions about the battle in Niger].  He could have and should have taken the opportunity to praise [the fallen soldiers'] bravery and sacrifice and to express the nation's gratitude to their families.  Instead, Trump launched an unprovoked attack on President Obama and President Bush . . . [because he felt attacked by reporters for his prolonged silence].

[Bookman continues]:  "What demon drives the man to do that, to escalate an opportunity for healing into a source of bitter dispute?   Both of his claims were demonstrably false. . . .

"It is also telling that for the second occasion in his relatively brief time in the national political spotlight, Trump finds himself trapped where he never ought to be, in a deeply personal yet public spat with a Gold Star family. . . .

"Again, how does this keep happening?  It happens because Trump is incapable of understanding that in those interactions, it is he, the president -- he, the great and mighty Donald J. Trump -- who must humble himself out of respect for the enormous sacrifice that those families have made.  In those circumstances, he is not the more important person, and it is he who must suck it up and squelch his compulsion to "punch back twice as hard" against any perceived slight or criticism.

"But the idea that he has to place the welfare of others ahead of his own ego . . . is beyond Trump's grasp, even in that sacred setting.  The servant role does not come naturally to him.   And frankly, it's that inability to see that larger picture, to respond under pressure with something other than lashing out viciously, that makes it so dangerous to have him as our nation's commander-in-chief."

*     *     *     *     *

I had already finished writing this on Monday night, when I saw a discussion on MSNBC's "All In With Chris Hayes" with political analyst Michael Steele and journalist Jennifer Rubin (whose article I will extensively quote tomorrow) discussing Trump and Sgt. Johnson's widow.   Ms. Johnson had spoken with George Stephanopolis on "Good Morning America."  Her tone was measured and calm;  but she clearly stated what her experience of the phone call had been, saying that what hurt the most was that the president didn't even seem to know her husband's name.

In less than an hour, our empathy-challenged president sent out a tweet contradicting her (as if to confirm Bookman's analysis):  "I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from the beginning, without hesitation!"

Let's be clear what happened here.  The president talks about "the lying press" and "fake news."   He was not referring to media reports.   Ms. Johnson spoke these words herself on national television.  So, the president's tweet said, in effect:  "She's lying about me."

Jennifer Rubin, who identifies herself as "a conservative voice" but is also anti-Trump, didn't try to hide her disgust over that response:  "[Trump] doesn't have his facts;  he doesn't have any sensibility of other people's emotions.  To attack a pregnant widow of a fallen soldier . . . How . . LOW . . can you get? . . .  Really!!"

President Trump, this has to stop.   You need help.   You are not up to this job.

Ralph

  

Donald Trump's fake Renoir painting

Tim O'Brien, author of the 2005 biography, TrumpNation:  The Art of Being Donald Trump, has a story about how Trump believes his own lies.   O'Brien tells of being with Trump on his private jet while researching the book.  

Trump pointed to a painting on the wall of the plane cabin and boasted, "That's an original Renoir."  O'Brien said he replied:  "No it's not, Donald.   I grew up in Chicago, and that Renoir is called 'Two Sisters on a Terrace' and it's hanging on a wall at the Art Institute of Chicago.'  We get on the plane the next day, and he points to the painting again, and he said, 'You know, that's an original Renoir."'

O'Brien continues:   "One of the reasons that story is so emblematic of him is, he believes his own lies, in a way that lasts for decades, and he'll tells the same stories, time and again regardless of whether the facts are right there in front of his face."

A spokesperson for The Art Institute told the Chicago Tribune that they are "satisfied that our version is real."   Yet despite this, and 12 years later, the same fake Renoir appears in the background in a TV interview with Trump and Mike Pence in the penthouse in Trump Tower, apparently moved there when he sold his plane.

There is nothing wrong with hanging a copy of a famous painting on your wall.  I have framed photo prints of two Picasso paintings and another print of a Matisse painting hanging on my walls -- because I love the paintings.   But they are not fake paintings;  they're clearly identified as printed copies and tell what art museum has the original painting.  The duplicity is in trying to pass off an artist-painted copy and falsely tell people it's the original.

I find it very disturbing -- but true -- that there is a serious question of whether Trump does actually believe his lies.   And, if he doesn't actually believe them, then what is behind his repetition of the lies, even when someone has exposed the lie as O'Brien did here?

Or, to put it another way, which has equally ominous implications for his state of mind:    Is he perhaps oblivious to the difference between reality and fantasy?

This is one of the strange, burning questions about how Donald Trump's mind works.   How can our allies possibly trust such a man to negotiate cooperative agreements with them or -- heaven forbid -- how could an adversary like North Korea ever negotiate any sort of nuclear arms treaty with him as our president, given the demonstrated unreliability of his word?

Ralph

Trump's constant need to create fights -- and now dragging Gen. Kelly in too

We have come to an unmistakable conclusion that Donald Trump instinctively starts fights either (1) because that's where he's comfortable or (2) as a distraction and diversion from other things he might be held accountable for.   The latest public version of this is his fight with Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, an African-American woman from Florida, who is known for her colorful outfits and her multiple versions of cowboy hats.

This started with reporters asking President Trump why he had gone so long without saying anything about the four soldiers who were killed in an ambush in Niger.   Instead of answering this question about his glaring silence on what happened, Trump pivoted and responded as though he had been accused of not making condolence calls to the surviving families.

In doing so, he defensively accused Barack Obama of not making condolence calls (a lie) and claimed that he himself always does (another lie).   So then he hurried the next day to make the call to the wife of the latest fallen soldier from this Niger ambush, Sgt. LaDavid Johnson, whose body was just being returned to the U.S.

Rep. Wilson happens to be an old family friend of the Johnsons and had known the sergeant all of his life.   She was in the limousine with the wife, Myeisha Johnson, on the way to meet the returning body of her husband, when the president's call came.   So she turned on the speaker phone so that it could be heard by other family members in the car.

Thus Rep. Wilson heard the president's words, which she says included the statement to Ms. Johnson that her husband "knew what he was getting into when he signed up, but it still hurts."    And after Trump's false statements to the media about how he handles condolence calls, Rep. Wilson spoke to the press to say that this comment had felt to the family like disrespect coming from the president.   And the whole episode, then, caused a backlash of bad publicity for the president.

Of course, the Tweeter-in-Chief didn't take long to send out a tweet, attacking Wilson, saying she had "totally fabricated" his words and claiming that he had "proof."

Now here is the first mistake.  An appropriate response from an empathic president would have been:   "I regret that what I said came across to those hearing it with a different meaning from what I intended .   I deeply apologize for adding to the pain and terrible sense of loss at this difficult time."   Period.  Leave it at that.

But the ever-defensive Trump had to accuse the family friend of lying, then added to the insult by accusing her of inappropriately "listening in" on a private conversation, and then spreading her "lies" to the media.   Somewhere in this flurry of tweets, Trump also said, in response to the backlash from those defending Obama's sensitive handling of condolences, "Ask Gen. Kelly if Obama called him."

An aunt of Sgt. Johnson, who was also in the car and heard the president's words, confirmed the accuracy of Rep. Wilson's account. That is, they contradicted the president's statement.   The nuance may have been misunderstood, but no way was it "totally fabricated," as Trump had claimed.

Chief of Staff Gen. Kelly, then went to the press room to give a 20 minute, deeply moving discourse on exactly what procedures are followed in handling the bodies of fallen soldiers, emphasizing the reverence and respect.  He detailed the process of notifying the families and the almost sacred tone that they try to maintain.

In doing so he spoke publicly for the first time about his own loss, saying that, when his son was killed, a military condolence officer had told him something similar -- that his son had signed up for this life, knew what the risks were, and that he was doing what he wanted to be doing.   Further, Gen Kelly said, that was helpful to him;  and so, when the president asked him what he could say to Sgt. Johnson's widow, he had suggested saying something similar.  {Which, by the way, confirms that Wilson's quote was not "entirely fabricated."]

Again, that would have been fine, if Kelly had stopped there.    But he didn't.  He went on to attack Rep. Wilson himself, calling her "selfish" for politicizing this and claiming that in 2015 she had used the occasion of the dedication of a new FBI headquarters building in Florida to brag about her own efforts in getting funding to build the building.    He said she had claimed that, with one phone call to President Obama, she had gotten him to approve the $20 million for the building.  Gen. Kelly called Rep. Wilson an "empty barrel," meaning that an empty barrel makes a louder sound when struck.

But what Gen. Kelly said about Rep. Wilson has been proved false by a video of the speech she gave.   She did mention her role in speeding up the legislative process to get congress to approve naming the building for the two FBI agents killed in the line of duty;  but it was not so much self-aggrandizement as it was about how the legislative leaders had cooperated to speed up the process so the FBI heroes' names could be on the building when it opened.

But Gen. Kelly's point was that she had bragged that she had gotten the funding for the building from President Obama.  Rep. Wilson was not even a member of congress when the funding for the building was raised.    Gen. Kelly was wrong, perhaps from a mistaken memory.  But the White House has only doubled down on its defense, has not admitted that Trump was wrong or that Gen. Kelly was mistaken.

Instead they have continued attacks on Rep. Wilson, Trump even saying that she is "killing the Democrat [sic] Party!."   And blaming her for grandstanding by "listening in" and politicizing what should have been a private, "sacred" conversation.    They completely ignored Rep. Wilson's long-standing relationship with the family and the fact that it was Sgt. Johnson's widow who had switched the call to speaker phone so that all the family could hear.

And let's pause a moment to think about pots and kettles being called black.   Does anyone grandstand and take credit more undeservedly than Donald Trump, who just two days ago ludicrously gave himself a "10" rating for the FEMA response in Puerto Rico?

Maria Cardona, writing in The Hill, called Kelly's news briefing "a stunning development in what already had become a vulgar couple of days; a sacrosanct ceremonial act -the president calling the families of fallen soldiers to express his deepest sympathies - had turned into a series of insults and accusations, started by President Trump, himself."  [emphasis added]

Cardona called Gen. Kelly's remarks "jaw-dropping," in that they were made from the press room of the White House, "whose occupant was the perpetrator of the vile actions that violently stripped the sacredness out of the very things -- and people -- Kelly was talking about."   She then mentioned Trump's attacks on Gold Star parents during the Republican national convention, his repeated attacks on Sen. John McCain's heroism because "he was captured.   I prefer people who aren't captured."    And what about his attacks on the mayor of San Juan, PR who dared to say that the federal government was not doing enough to help the hurricane victims?  Cardona continues:

"I understand why Gen. Kelly was upset.  After all, his own son's death had been brought into the putrid spiral of Trump rhetoric.  What's more, I am not convinced that it was Gen. Kelly's choice to come out and play the role of partisan pundit and political henchman for Trump.

"But he did, and by doing so, he has descended into the muck of uncivil partisanship that he himself was deriding.

"Did Gen. Kelly have to insult Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) who was standing up for the young Gold-Star widow who felt Trump had disrespected her, the memory of her fallen husband and their family?   What's worse, we now know some of the things Gen. Kelly asserted about the congresswoman are not true.

"Yes, the Congresswoman took it up a notch by going on TV to stick up for the young wife who was upset by Trump's call.  But Gen. Kelly is a retired four-star Marine general and chief of staff to the president of the United States.  Isn't it his role to calm the storm, represent real valor and integrity and seek to unify the country after an incredibly difficult but self-inflicted misstep, especially when his boss is completely unable and unequipped to do so?"

Cardona further suggested that Gen. Kelly's advice to Trump about what to say was inappropriate, given the very different circumstances:

"I don't believe Gen. Kelly intended to give his boss bad advice, but . . . The words 'he knew what he was signing up for . . .'  or any variation thereof, will fall very differently on the ears of an older, lifelong Marine general than they would on the ears of a 24-year-old mother of two -- who has another on the way -- especially when they are coming from someone who didn't even seem to know her husband's name."

And I [Ralph] am further disillusioned by this whole, extended exchange, because we've all been hoping that Gen. Kelly could somehow -- if not able to make his boss grow up and grow into his office -- at least be able to provide stability and sanity and honesty and integrity to the office of the presidency.

What this proves is that Gen. Kelly is only human -- that he had to respond personally to try to clean up one of his boss's messes, and that perhaps he was thrown somewhat off balance by the necessity to talk in public about his own still-painful loss of his son, which he has always wanted to avoid.   The act of talking about his son -- in order to clean up Donald Trump's mess -- must have been excruciating and maddening.

Even if Gen. Kelly's behavior is understandable, I feel even less secure than I did when we could still believe he had magical powers no one has ever had over Donald Trump.  Instead, it seems that Trump has tarnished Kelly.

Ralph

PS:  So what was all this supposed to distract us from?   Oh, yes.   Why were our soldiers in Niger?   And why were they ambushed by forces that we obviously didn't expect, since we had provided no air cover for them?    Was it an intelligence failure?    We, the public, do now yet know.