Protecting a snowflake?

For the White House staff, a U.S. Navy destroyer and its crew command less respect than the president’s fragile ego.

During his trip to Japan this week, President Donald Trump was given a tour of the Yokosuka Naval Base. In preparation for his visit Tuesday, the White House requested the Navy hide the USS John S. McCain, a destroyer bearing the name of the senator and Trump nemesis who died last August. Sailors aboard the ship were given the day off and, unlike colleagues from other vessels, pointedly not invited to attend Trump’s speech aboard another warship. Sailors from the McCain who showed up anyway, with the ship’s name on their uniforms or caps, were turned away.

When news of the effort became public, Trump responded — first on Twitter and later to reporters — that he’d had nothing to do with the decision. He probably didn’t. He nonetheless acknowledged his enduring dislike of McCain and praised whoever had been responsible for the ship kerfuffle as “well meaning.”

It seems we have reached a point where the president of the United States is considered such a snowflake by his own staff members that they tripped over themselves to avoid having him even see the name of someone he didn’t like — a Navy hero tortured in a North Vietnamese prison while the future president’s bone spurs kept him out of the service — that was inconveniently emblazoned on a

destroyer within his line of sight.

Staff members have so internalized their boss’ vanities and petty grudges that they scurry to avoid anything that might offend his sense of self. The McCain episode may sound largely harmless, even if it showed further politicization of the military. This was, after all, the same event at which some service members were photographed wearing patches with an image of the president surrounded by the words “Make Aircrew Great Again” — a play on Trump’s MAGA campaign slogan. So it may be too much to expect anyone in this administration to think twice about such niceties.

But other instances of the president’s fragility are deadly serious. In late April, it came to light that the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, had warned Kirstjen Nielsen, then the homeland security secretary, against raising the issue of Russia’s attempts to interfere in American elections in front of the president. Nielsen was desperate to get the White House to show leadership and focus public attention on this critical threat. But Mulvaney told her that the entire issue was tangled up in Trump’s brain with questions about the legitimacy of his 2016 victory.

And so the integrity of the American electoral system is being neglected because White House aides don’t want to risk hurting Trump’s feelings. Who knows what other important issues are being similarly compromised?