Trump is genius better. Right? Let's stir the pot here.

The next person will be awful.

And also touting the neocon line about how important it is to have troops in various places.

The idea that Bolton and his ilk are more reasonable/rational is a fallacy.

from the start.

I agree by the way. We cannot allow ourselves to be so overwhelmed by Trump's insanity that we excuse or even give tacit or outright approval of the actions of these other bad actors.

post and a couple of people got all bent out of shape because... Mattis was working for the American people.

mattis - merely awful

orange asshole - insanely awful

Nothing whatsoever.

But, hey, thanks for finding something else to stir up. Way to go.

Or some sort of "guard rail" or the like.

If you're trying to take the heat off Trump, that's not going to work. Attacking Mattis is not how that will be done.

It seems like you're looking for a way to get people thinking about something other than the catastrophe Trump actually represents. Why would you do that? Did you think Trump would appoint anyone who was not a conservative to a cabinet post? He wouldn't. So, it's no surprise that we don't like Mattis, really.

Mattis, an arch conservative, has summarily resigned through a scathing letter delivered to Trump. That's just how bad Trump is. Don't try to minimize it, oberliner. It looks bad when you do things like that.

I am always impressed with posts like that.

I think you need to stop and rethink what you're up to. Seriously.

Do I like Mattis? Nope. Am I glad he resigned and handed over a resignation letter that pointed out Trump's flaws? Absolutely.

Today, I have no beef with Mattis. He did a good thing. You, however, apparently have some strategy in mind by trying to minimize his resignation action. I think I know what that strategy is about, but I'm not going to lay it out here. It's not working, though.

Too much transparency, oberliner. Try being more subtle with your diversions.

Pretty straightforward point.

Think about it again.

Mattis has taken himself right out of the picture. He's yesterday's news item. His awfulness is no longer an issue, actually. Everyone Trump has hired is awful. It's what he does. This is about Trump, not Mattis. It is about Trump, not Sessions. It is about Trump, not Cohen. It is just about Trump.

Please stop attempting to divert from that simple fact. Mattis is gone. He doesn't matter any more. He left in a way that damages Trump. That is a good thing. Focus, oberliner. Focus.

He is awful.

He is being praised for being "the adult in the room" repeatedly.

I am reminding folks that he is basically Donald Rumsfeld.

It sure FEELS like an effort to minimize the impact of his scathing rebuke to Trump. Why would you do that, especially now?

And the OP thinks nobody notices the tactics.

You gotta love them.

Nope. Diversion is the goal. I don't like diversion.

Too much synergy etc.

No one should agree on anything!

The "adults in the room" idea is a bit ridiculous.

I think it's important to remember how awful he is.

Yeah, I’m not crazy about Mattis but he is competent to run DoD

Can OrangeTurd find a replacement who is competent? Who will push back against the orange menace?

Most likely the replacement will be an incompetent toadie.

Lots of DUers agreed with this when he was the nominee.

Bear in mind I am talking about the post, not the poster.

BTW, OP and my reply are both opinions.

In fact, the current situation is what makes it an important point to bear in mind. Just my opinion.

it’s good to have an occasional reality check.

I know we are dealing with the insanity of the Trump gang - but that doesn't make the anti-Trump Republicans any less terrible.

did this idiot think was going to happen? Fuck him too along with the rest of them...... Now excuse while I go shower.

I'll rephrase. He did support this goddamn monster as a candidate. Either he's an idiot who somehow missed everything the rest of us saw. Or thought he'd be able to control this cretin for his own purposes. Whichever the case. This dude is just another repuke asshole who should've known better.

That being said you were correct when you mused that he "thought he'd be able to control this cretin for his own purposes."

his silence whenever The Talking Scrotum used his name to brag about all the generals who were backing him. He could've just said he didn't want his name being used out there for political purposes.

Or is yours merely akin to "just a reminder in case you've forgotten... breathing is important!"

He doesn't post very often, but when he does, it makes waves, eh?

Though I do get their point considering his resignation letter. That alone is a pretty big deal. It is simply another point of information when it comes to his body of work.

He's fucking terrible. But some have the need to turn anyone even that goes slightly against Trump into a hero.

It's infantile but what are you gonna do. It just seems impossible for them that two things can be bad.

The fact that Trump being bad doesn't automatically make this guy great is just too much nuance for them to handle.

My sentiments exactly.

...but James Mattis was an exemplary Marine Corps officer who did what he had to do and said what he had to say in order to take of the Marines under his command.

I don't expect those who didn't/wouldn't serve to understand. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion...

but not absolutely out of his mind.

I guess he's the devil we know at this point. Who knows what barrel that orange thing will scrape the bottom of next.

Awful but not out of his mind seems right on the money.

End of debate.

Mattis, in his retirement years, had built a good life for himself. But when the call came, he chose, one more time, to serve. There is no doubt in my mind that he would have preferred to serve President Hillary Clinton. But patriotic duty is patriotic duty, and he did his, the day he joined Trump’s team. And he did his patriotic duty again on Thursday, when he decided he could take no more.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/mattis-knew-trump-beginning/578797/

Quoted from your link.

Or us in the long run?

Wow.

Because if it's not ''good for us in the long term'' then that implies something has to be done.

Seems myopic to suggest violence in the answer to every problem.

We're talking about Mattis here. Remember? He is an extreme hawk on Iran.

Do you really expect me to believe you think he was talking about 'ways other than war'? Because I don't.



edit: I see you've now edited the post. When I first responded it didn't have the bit about me suggesting violence is the answer.

lol how ridiculous.

There are ways of containing unfriendly actors well short of war. My original point is it's not in our interest or Israel's interest for Russia and especially Iran controlling Syria. Trump's mercurial ways and obtuseness make war by miscalculation more likely, not less likely. We got into Gulf War l because Bush Pere said the U.S. has no position on intra Arab disputes. We got into the Korean War because Secretary Of State Acheson didn't include South Korea in our strategic Asian Defense Perimeter.


I will admit to my bias. Maybe Mattis looks better to me because he excoriated Trump. However he tried to defend the right of trans people to serve. That was a righteous move, in my eyes.

Though yours a fun game to play, it's ultimately meaningless. At best.

during the duration of her scam company. She was an outstanding con artist. Blame her, not Mattis. He simply fell for her lines.

Hers is a fascinating story, but she is the subject, not the people she scammed. She was just that good. I remember seeing her name very early in the process, when she was at the top of all the lists of rising entrepreneurs. Even Fortune had her on its list of rising stars. She took a lot of people in.

Not me. I read about her "breakthrough" very early and thought about it. It didn't make any sense to me as an actual diagnostic tool. It didn't pass logical muster if you actually looked at the premise that was behind it.

But, Elizabeth Holmes is a very bright, attractive woman. She "wowed" a lot of people, who forgot to investigate the concept she was selling thoroughly. Mattis knows nothing about micro sample analysis. He was just another "mark" on her list of gullible marks.

I watched some of her presentations. She was very, very good at selling her phony business. Many, many prominent business investors bought into her charming presentation.

You can't blame Mattis for that. He just fell for an extremely well-designed scam.

Because you know lots about micro sample analysis?

I knew nothing about it (I do now), but she set off every Con Artist bell in my head the first time I saw her act. My wife, who does know about micro sample analysis, was flabbergasted that so many rich old straight white men would swallow every pile of crap she pooped out. The con was blatantly obvious, but it worked on rubes, JUST LIKE TRUMP'S.

Conservatives are prime marks because they already believe multiple streams of flagrant bullshit: prosperity gospel, flag-waiving rah-rah jingoism, ACC denial, trickle-down economics, etc. Mattis bought it; I can blame him for being a fool.

She's not that attractive, either. She has an odd affect.

As soon as I saw what she was doing, I said to myself, "Ah, another Blue Sky Enterprises scam." Then, I looked more closely into what her claims for the process were. It reeked of the same nonsense as homeopathic medicine to me. Working with micro samples means odd dilutions and even missing components of the test.

But, she was able to con some pretty smart people, along with a lot of men who understood nothing about what she was touting. You mentioned her strange affect. I noticed that too. She's probably somewhere on the autism spectrum, i think. I thought she was strangely attractive, though, which is part of why I followed the story over time. The whole thing sort of fascinated me. My wife said, "Why are you so interested in this?" I didn't have a good answer.

When Walgreens pumped a bunch of money into it, I was shocked. I mean, I understood the old guys getting hooked by her presentation and probably mild flirtation, but Walgreens?

When it finally fell apart, it tumbled quickly. It simply didn't work. It was never going to work. It's like the guy building a flying car in his garage and attracting investors. it was never a good idea, and it never really worked very well at all, but flying cars attracted a lot of investors. Hell, they still do.

I love "Blue Sky Enterprises." There's always one being introduced. Cold fusion. A breakthrough new internal combustion engine. Some sort of free energy perpetual motion machine.

There's a sucker born every minute, and a con artist born in the same hospital on the same day.

The act will be exposed and rats will desert the sinking ship.

It's taking it's sweet time, however.

"odd affect" was my polite way of saying "on the spectrum" - great minds, etc....

...End of debate.

Mattis was one of the few adults in the room

Link to tweet

Plenty of grounds to differ strongly with him and Never Trumpers on various policies and the effects of them on real people. Those differences can be profound and the consequences of them can be severe. But an appreciation of the rule of law, of the basic fabric of democracy and all of the rights we honor which includes the full bill of rights, that is something that Trumpers brush away as inconsequential. To them, corruption in the pursuit of their agenda is not a vise.

Mattis is not in the Trumper camp either by nature or belief. He is not personally corrupt. He honors democracy for democracy's sake. He respects democratic values, and by extension other democracies in the world. And he is sane, which is an attribute of some value in someone holding the position of Secretary of Defense.

He’s a conservative Republican with all that implies.

However he constantly pushed back on Trump’s craziest impulses, and got Trump to back down. If you get a chance to read Bob Woodward’s Fear, you’ll get a better idea of what he did.

and he at least earned a few days or two of praise from the opposition to the regime he worked for.

I would not have picked him as SecDef, but once he was in the office, he took it seriously. He took his role of protecting our alliances and institutions seriously.

So I may not like everything about him, but it was serving an important role.

I'm sure what the point of this thread is other than righteous indignation.

He is just that superficial. Recall when he introduced him with obvious relish as “‘Mad Dog’ Mattis.” Just as he said Pence came “right out of central casting,” Trump saw Mattis as a bold presence in his reality show.

But yeah.... to Trump, it's always about the sizzle, not the steak.

...

As in "Colonel Has An Outstanding Strategy". His men believed in him when times got tough, and that's good enough for me. He has to leave because he can't do a madman's bidding and we all have to respect that. Oh, and that awesome Resignation Letter, too! It was one for the ages.

The letter will answer any remaining questions for historians. Although I expect much will be clarified in coming months.