Trump and Kelly deserve one another
WASHINGTON: In the spirit of the Olympics, it has long been clear who takes the gold medal for worst performer no corners.) Now, it’s time to award the silver medal to an unexpected choice: White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.
Kelly’s triumph, such as it is, comes after serious contenders were eliminated from the competition: 24-day national security adviser Michael Flynn, who barely had time - non, who did.
That leaves, somewhat surprisingly, Kelly. He came in as the supposed grown-up in the room, the competent four-star who, if he couldn’t corral Trump’s worst instincts and behaviors, at least could impose some trickle-down discipline.
Which Kelly, by all accounts, has done. But he has also reaped the whirlwind he was supposed to calm, most explosively with his relentlessly obtuse handling of domestic abuse allegations against one of his most trusted aides, former staff secretary Rob Porter. Remarkably among the Trump administration’s unceasing string of problems, - posed to stop the president from self-harm.
Of course, Trump being Trump, he eventually got in on the act himself, with a typically tonedeaf comment that expressed zero concern for Porter’s ex-wives and an excess of solicitude for their abuser. “It’s obviously a very tough time for him,” Trump said of Porter. “We hope that he will have a wonderful career.”
It is the job of the chief of staff to head off moments like this, not set the stage for them.
“Every president reveals himself by the presidential portraits he hangs in the Roosevelt Room, and by the person he picks as his chief of staff,” historian Richard Norton Smith told Chris Whipple, author of weak.” Kelly’s allure, for Trump chief of staff 2.0, was his standing as one of “my generals,” as Trump likes to call them. Just as Priebus revealed Trump’s insatiable desire for stroking, Kelly illustrated his unsettling attraction to strongmen.
Chief of staff is a thankless, impossible job for every president. Trump makes the chief’s task Herculean. So, it’s hard to blame Kelly for implementing his own version of the Serenity Prayer, and accepting that there was no way to control the presidential Twitter feed.
The problem, as it turned out, was that Kelly not only reinforced some of Trump’s worst instincts— he displayed them himself. Where Trump resisted condemning white separatists protesting the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville last summer, Kelly followed a few months later with a paean to Lee as “an honorable man” and asserting that “the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War.”
Likewise, Kelly seems to share Trump’s inclination to escalate and allergy to apology. After Kelly attacked Florida Democrat Rep. Frederica Wilson as an “empty barrel” and a video showed that he had misrepresented her comments, Kelly vowed that he would “never” apologize.
So, Kelly’s start-to-finish botching of the Porter situation was of a piece with his faltering past performance, and in line with Trump’s own dismissive attitude toward domestic violence. Kelly wasn’t “fully aware” of the allegations against Porter? If so, only because he failed to take them seriously. He cared more about keeping one of the few capable people inside . the West Wing at his side than about having an
- accused abuser on the staff. son of Reince Priebus, was as an executive When the Porter story broke, Kelly’s rewho preferred to surround himself by toadsponse was classic, Trumpian bravado: to ies prepared to pay the price of slathering Trump with praise and constitutionally praising him as “a man of true integrity and incapable of standing up to him. The most honor.” It took more than a dozen hours the stomach- churning photograph full cabinet meeting, last June, when Priebus surfaced of Porter’s bruised ex-wife for Kelly gushed, “we thank you for the opportunity to pronounce himself “shocked.” Right. Too and the blessing that you’ve given us to serve shocked to respond in real time. your agenda and the American people.” That In short, Trump and Kelly deserve one another. Their country deserves better. ousted the next month. Trump’s beef with Priebus, as
reported on the occasion of his