Lost in the storm and anguish over John Kelly’s attacks today was a sobering reality. The ideological and rhetorical spine of his remarks was a paean to MAGA. The old days were good. We had real religion. Things were right with women. There was no abortion. Honor was sacred and respected. Now it’s all crap because of people like Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D), a showboater from Florida who transgressed our last sacred space.
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That is the ideological spine. The rhetorical spine of his remarks was even clearer. Attacks on President Trump are attacks on the sanctity of heroism and patriotic sacrifice itself. Again, attacking President Trump is attacking the troops. It’s the same maneuver driving Trump’s war on the NFL. Kneeling during the national anthem to protest racism and police misconduct really isn’t about police brutality or racism it all. It’s spitting on the sacrifice of American soldiers.
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Just what Kelly was saying wasn’t clear on first blush because he’s not a phony and a clown like President Trump – an unchurched libertine and draft dodger who wraps himself in traditionalism and military glory. If you’re eyes are open Trump is a joke against himself. Kelly is a bonafide general officer and combat veteran. When he speaks about military sacrifice we listen. We should. He speaks with some authority, from experience, unlike the President.
But his script turned out to be pure MAGA, pure Trumpism, in some ways more potent because it was wrapped in a lifetime of service but still no less odious.
Misogyny (of the Handsmaid Tale variety IMO) and racism. The idea that she’d just called up Barack Obama for that cool fictional $20m is pure dog-whistling.
This is a very old strain going back at least to the 19th century. Women are ‘too good’ and ‘too pure’ for the rough and tumble of politics and business; it’s their job to maintain the sacred haven of domesticity and mold the next generation. It turns up in old debates about the suffrage, for example. Of course there’s also the chivalric code from centuries before, yada yada.
I’m sure Kelly wouldn’t say any of that but a term like ‘the sacredness of women’ embeds a lot of old baggage.
I have the deepest sympathy for Gen. John Kelly and the loss he and his family have endured. I have sincere respect for his and his son’s military service to this country, and I believe he has tried to do his very best to serve in the untenable position he’s been placed in as the man charged with keeping the Trump White House under control. I do not envy him one bit.
All that said, I lost a great deal of respect for John Kelly the man yesterday. His remarks in his press appearance were completely uncalled for, unprofessional and essentially classless. Instead of coming to the podium and simply explaining that he had conversed with Trump about what was said to him as a Gold Star father upon his own son’s death, and what words might have meaning and give comfort to a grieving family, and then taking responsibility for Trump botching those words in his call with Ms. Johnson, he decided to sell out to Trumpism on full display yesterday.
Attacking Rep. Wilson, saying she had no business “listening in” on the call…like she was tapping the phone or somehow covertly eavesdropping into a situation she had no business being involved with. Rep. Wilson was there at the bequest of the family. She was there to lend support as someone who had know Johnson from the time he was a child, as a mentor and positive influence in the life of a kid who could have easily grown up to become something completely different than the soldier, father and hero he turned out to be. Ms. Wilson’s very presence in that car is representative of what good government should be, an elected official serving her constituents. The call was not private, it was placed on speaker by the widow so that all those in the car, people who are her family and whom she considers family, could hear the words of the President of the United States calling to console them in their grief and thank them for the ultimate sacrifice their husband, father and friend had made for his country.
Instead they heard President Shitgibbon fling his verbal poop across 1000 miles with tone-deaf comments and out of context snippets torn from something Kelly has said to him earlier that day. He couldn’t even be bothered to have someone write a short script for him so he could remember what to say and say it properly, for fuck’s sake he couldn’t even remember Johnson’s name!
But no, the real crime here is that a black female representative from Florida was in that car in the first place, and that she heard the remarks and got all uppity about it afterwards. How dare she? She is no patriot. She should go kneel on the sidelines next Sunday with the rest of the Negros who don’t appreciate how lucky they are to be Americans.
Fuck that, fuck this Administration, and fuck Trump and all his asshole supporters.
Lol, she thanks more Republicans than Democrats for getting it done. She says speaker Boehner went into ‘Attack Mode’ and cut through all the red tape. What a total douche Kelly is. How did he even get this particular attack line?
Part of General Kelly’s speech regarding Wilson’s dedication of the FBI building:
"A congresswoman stood up, and in a long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there in all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building, and how she took care of her constituents because she got the money, and she just called up President Obama, and on that phone call, he gave the money — the $20 million — to build the building, and she sat down, and we were stunned. Stunned that she had done it. Even for someone that is that empty a barrel, we were stunned.”
Oh, but wait. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel had the video from that dedication.
The White House reply to that?
“Gen. Kelly said he was ‘stunned’ that Rep. Wilson made comments at a building dedication honoring slain FBI agents about her own actions in Congress, including lobbying former President Obama on legislation. As Gen. Kelly pointed out, if you’re able to make a sacred act like honoring American heroes about yourself, you’re an empty barrel."
