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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCharles P. Pierce: This was a tragic day for John Kelly.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a13054560/john-kelly-son-trump/?src=socialflowFBThe Darkness Reaching Out for the Darkness in Everyone
This was a tragic day for John Kelly.
By Charles P. Pierce
Oct 19, 2017
This strikes me as a terribly sad moment. Everything and everybody this president* touches goes bad from the inside out. And it doesnt matter to me whether people volunteered to work for him or not. In Oliver Stones Nixon, theres a great scene on the Key Bridge at night where Ed Harriss Howard Hunt warns a very tremulous John Dean, played by David Hyde-Pierce. Nixon, Hunt tells Dean, is the darkness reaching out for the darkness in everyone. That was true, but this is what we know now: in this, Nixon was a rank amateur. From The New York Times:
Mr. Kelly said that he was stunned to see the criticism, which came from a Democratic congresswoman, Representative Frederica S. Wilson of Florida, after Mr. Trump delivered a similar message to the widow of one of the soldiers killed in Niger. Mr. Kelly said afterward that he had to collect his thoughts by going to Arlington National Cemetery for more than an hour. In a remarkable, somber appearance in the White House briefing room, Mr. Kelly, a retired Marine general whose son Second Lt. Robert Kelly was slain in battle in 2010, said he had told the president what he was told when he got the news.
He was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed, Mr. Kelly recalled. He knew what he was getting into by joining that one percent. He knew what the possibilities were, because we were at war. I was stunned when I came to work yesterday, and brokenhearted, when I saw what a member of Congress was doing, he said. What she was saying, what she was doing on TV. The only thing I could do to collect my thoughts was to go walk among the finest men or women on this earth.
He was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed, Mr. Kelly recalled. He knew what he was getting into by joining that one percent. He knew what the possibilities were, because we were at war. I was stunned when I came to work yesterday, and brokenhearted, when I saw what a member of Congress was doing, he said. What she was saying, what she was doing on TV. The only thing I could do to collect my thoughts was to go walk among the finest men or women on this earth.
Thats how he gets absolved. Thats how he always gets absolved. Theres always somebody willing to step up and push their soul to the middle of the table for him to gamble with and, when he loses, because he always loses at the game of being human, he reneges on the bet because thats what he always does. Of all the generals, Kelly always was the one closest to being a true Trumpian; his tenure at Homeland Security overseeing ICE showed that Kelly at least was sympatico with the president*s Id-driven hardbar approach to immigration.
And now, by deploying the memory of his son, hes given his inexcusable boss that bosss most recent alibi for that bosss most recent offense against human decency and the dignity of his office. Theres a great sadness in that.
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Charles P. Pierce: This was a tragic day for John Kelly. (Original Post)
babylonsister
Oct 2017
OP
Kelly has lost what little soul he may have had. He"s just a souless liar now.
SharonClark
Oct 2017
#3
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)1. I was hoping for comments.
Sad anyway.
rockfordfile
(8,704 posts)2. Good read
SharonClark
(10,014 posts)3. Kelly has lost what little soul he may have had. He"s just a souless liar now.
Grammy23
(5,810 posts)4. tRump sends his minions out to clean up his messes.
Spice Boy had to do it from his first day on the job. Sarah Huckleberry has her turn in the barrel on a regular basis. tRump is basically a coward who will never apologize and never answer for himself. He likes to send someone else out to face the press. The apologists have their talking points and are expected to make it all good again. Lucky them. Only costs them their soul and whatever passes for integrity they possess.
BiminiTwisted
(102 posts)5. It's the Midas touch in reverse , everything Trump touches turns to shit.