General John Kelly was dispatched to the White House Press Room today to clean up Trump's mess over on Aisle La David Johnson.
It was a stunning display of obsequious kowtowing to Herr Führer Trump by the General. Anyone who kids themselves into thinking that General Kelly is some kind of white knight out to save us from the totalitarian disaster occupying the White House needs to have their heads examined.
After running through what happens to a dead soldier in morbid detail, including how they are shrouded, embalmed and transported back to the United States, Kelly then explained how families are notified by casualty officers at first light.
"Who are these young men and women? They are the best 1% this country produces. Most of average Americans don't know them. Many don't know any who knows any one of them," he continued. "But they are the very best this country produces and volunteer to protect our country when there's nothing in our country anymore that seems to suggest that selfless service to the nation is not only appropriate but required."
Oh please spare us the whole "this nation is not great" schtick.
He then went on to talk about how the only phone calls that are important come from the buddies of the fallen servicemen, and how his son's friends were calling from Afghanistan. Okay.
After acknowledging that the letters matter somewhat, Kelly got down to the business of cleaning up the mess.
"When I took this job and talked to President Trump about how to [call families of fallen servicemembers], my first recommendation was he not do it. Because it's not the phone call that parents, family members are looking forward to. It's nice to do in my opinion in any event."
He then made a point out of saying that President Obama did not call his family. Although it's possible President Obama may have called his son's wife. We don't actually know. But in any event, Kelly said it was "not a criticism."
Point made. That little mess is swept up into the dustpan now, isn't it?
"That's not a negative thing," he reassured. Because both sides! "I don't believe President Bush called in all cases," Kelly went on to recall.
Now we get to the earnest discussion Trump and Kelly had about what to say, because really, that's the biggest pile in the room, isn't it?
"So he called four people the other day and expressed his condolences in the best way he could," Kelly said without mentioning Trump's complete lack of empathy.
After telling Trump there was really nothing he could say to lighten the burden, Kelly tried anyway, at once accepting responsibility for how the words came out to the woman in the car.
Let me tell you what I tell them, let me tell you what my best friend told me because he was my casualty officer, he said Kel, he was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed. He knew what he was getting into by joining that 1%. He knew what the possibilities were. Because we're at war. And when he died and the four cases we're talking about Niger and my son's cases in Afghanistan, when he died he was surrounded by the best men on this earth, his friends.
That's what the president tried to say to four families the other day.
Enough with the sentimental stuff. Let's get to the business of dumping on an African-American Congresswoman who was doing her job, serving her constituents the way she was elected to do.
Kelly was "stunned" that she would dare to do her job with a young man she mentored.
I was stunned when I came to work yesterday morning and brokenhearted at what I saw a member of Congress doing. A member of Congress who listened in the on a phone call from the President of the United States to a young wife. And in his way tried to express that opinion that he's a brave man, a fallen hero, he knew what he was getting himself into because he enlisted, there's no reason to enlist, he enlisted and was where he wanted to be, exactly where he wanted to be with exactly the people he wanted to be with when his life was taken.
That was the message. That was the message that was transmitted. It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me.
NOTHING IS SACRED!
And I thought at least that sacred. As a kid growing up a lot of things were sacred in our country. Women were sacred. Looked upon with great honor. That's obviously not the case anymore as we've seen from recent cases. Life was sacred. That's gone. Religion. That seems to be gone as well. Gold star families, I think that left in the convention over the summer.
WHOA, HOLD UP THERE JUST A COTTON PICKIN' MINUTE.
Who exactly stripped Gold Star families of their sacredness, again? Who was that masked man? OH. It was YOUR BOSS and his Putin-loving pals.
But it's all Rep. Wilson's fault, General Kelly says ruefully.
I just thought the selfless devotion that brings a man or woman to die in the battlefield, I thought that might be sacred. And when I listened to this woman and what she was saying and what she was doing on TV, the only thing I could do to collect my thoughts was to go and walk among the finest men and women on this earth.
And you can always find them. Because they're in Arlington National Cemetery. Went over there for an hour and a half, walked among the stones some of whom I put there because they were doing what I told them to do when they were killed.
That wasn't enough for him, though. No, he had to put a finer point on it. I am assuming at this point that General "Rock Solid" Kelly is writing Trump's ridiculous talking points, because this shows just how far a decorated general will stoop to lick the boots of his unqualified commander in chief.
