Stepping up to the plate on Monday was retired Marine General John F. Kelly to replace the ousted chief of staff, for the Trump White House, Reince Priebus, in what is arguably one of the most chaotic of White House administrations, seemingly ever. While it’s hard to give a score, or ranking to previous efforts, it’s quite clear that this is not your father’s White House, as the old car dealerships would advertise.
Taking the road less travelled, Kelly fired the F-bomb laden, brash boy, Anthony Scaramucci, as White House Communications Director, who himself replaced the beleaguered, and often clueless, Sean Spicer, whose violated the first rule in public speaking : making Nazi comparisons, and putting that American history textbook, on the garage sale table, in the backyard.
Unbelievably, in an interview with The New Yorker, Scaramucci took a series of profanity laden pot shots at some of the most prominent members of President Trump’s administration, including Priebus, and others. After a collective WTF from even the most sanguine of Trump supporters many had said, enough was enough, and in steps the General, a veteran with combat experience in Central America, and Iraq.
If what we have seen over the last six months is indicative, of any past participles, then it’s safe to assume that the general has his work cut out for him, making order out of chaos, with the leaks from frustrated staffers, and those that serve them, to the fake news that emanates from the keyboard of POTUS.
If sanity truly does matter then the first order of business, as all of the talking heads on network, and cable stations, have noted, is the president, or even more succinctly, those awkward, often sophomoric tweets that sabotage his efforts at even establishing an agenda, not to mention daily governance, attacking hither and yon, suggesting that he has secretly recorded tapes, threatening news organizations, announcing bans on transgendered people without warrant, or even by - including the Pentagon.
Not to mention the public whipping (via Twitter) that he has given Jeff Sessions, which seems a hell of a way to treat a fervent, and early supporter of candidate Trump.
What lies behind most of these “airoticas” is fear, genuine fear, that as some have said, when the truth comes out with the Russian allegations, then it’s a return to Trump Tower. It also lurks behind the beratement of Sessions for recusing himself from the Russian investigation, and not the old canard of Hillary’s emails.
In the none too distant past, the presence of Ivanka Trump, as special advisor was hoped to stop those embarrassing tweets. But, while she has emerged as an advisor, (with a flawless wardrobe of couture fashion), even she can’t make a difference, unless she trades in her Manolo Blahniks for a pair of track shoes to race around the private quarters of the Mansion to see what Daddy is tweeting, and where he is doing it - maybe under the blanket, or in the linen closet?
In a CNN interview, on Monday, with ardent Trump supporters in Alabama, his fans almost begged him to stop with the tweets already, or at least to discipline them, with Kelly’s help?
As we all know family matters, and in this family, Kelly will have to tread a fine line between the lives of Ivanka and her husband Jared, and brother Donald, Jr., who have all behaved in suspicious manners: meeting secretly with Russian officials and asking for a secret channel, one of theirs, to communicate with; to the namesake, and heir, meeting with a Russian lawyer to get the goods on Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign, sudden contracts with foreign clothing retailers for orders from Ivanka, Inc.
The jungles of Central America maybe just the experience that Kelly needs to traverse the hills of the family Trump, not be confused with the Von Trapps. Yet, most agree that the number one factor to be addressed is Trump himself. "I keep saying there is no better Trump, there's never a pivot," said GOP strategist Rick Wilson, a vigorous critic of the president. "No one is smart or strong enough to change him,” reported The Hill.
All of which points to how can Kelly, as urban slang would have it, keep it real with Trump. That is the $64,000 question, and one that is not easily answered. For example, if Kelly urges him to stay on message, can that be done without a message? So far, the Trump agenda seems to be mostly campaign promises, and little else.
After seating Kelly for the press announcement in one of the gold upholstered, (and, ill-named Martha Washington) chairs in the Oval Office, they proceeded to the “board room” as Trump calls the Cabinet Room, and when asked about the latest nuclear North Korean bomb testing, (one that could potentially hit either Denver, or Chicago) all that he could say, was “We’ll take care of it.”
Godspeed General Kelly!
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