I wonder what Kelly thinks about being Trump's new go-to guy for clearing up his messes? He doesn't seem the sort of guy who would like the spotlight .....
Sadly, he is already smelling of the Trump Shitshow, but this time he was in full control of the defecation! When Trump tried to use Kelly’s loss (his son was KIA in Afghanistan), he publicized something that Kelly has been hyper-private about. Instead of leaving well alone, Kelly then stepped into the breach and make it even worse! He ignored that Trump had protested he had not said something, and related that he had indeed said it. He then went on to tell a tale of what happened when his own son died, and what his Casualty Officer (the name given to the person who stays with the body and family), who he clearly knew well as they were both high level military officers, had said...
“So he (Trump) called four people the other day and expressed his condolences in the best way that he could. And he said to me, what do I say? I said to him, sir, there’s nothing you can do to lighten the burden on these families.
Well, let me tell you what I told him. Let me tell you what my best friend, Joe Dunford, told me — because he was my casualty officer. He said, ‘Kel, he was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed. He knew what he was getting into by joining that 1 percent. He knew what the possibilities were because we’re at war. And when he died (in the four cases we’re talking about, Niger, and my son’s case in Afghanistan) — when he died, he was surrounded by the best men on this Earth: his friends.’
That’s what the President tried to say to four families the other day.”
In that recounting of what happened, he not only contradicts the President, but he also illustrates how time deaf he is! What Kelly relates to him is what two old, grizzly, battle worn warriors said to each other and how they saw the sacrifice Kelly’s own son had made...in terms military men understand. In his complete ineptitude, and with absolutely no idea how to show even the least bit of empathy, Trump simply repeated those same words, originally exchanged between military veterans who knew each other, to a 24 year old, newly single mother with two children and pregnant with a third. The las5 thing she needed to hear was that he knew what he signed up for and died doing it! Talk about tone deaf and lack of tact?!
However, of even more concern to me personally, with irony so far lost on Trump and the White House, apparently, was what else Kelly said, when he was warming up for the slapdown on the Congresswoman from Florida....
“It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me. And I thought at least that was sacred. You know, when I was a kid growing up, a lot of things were sacred in our country. Women were sacred, looked upon with great honor. That’s obviously not the case anymore as we see from recent cases. Life — the dignity of life — is sacred. That’s gone. Religion, that seems to be gone as well.
Gold Star families, I think that left in the convention over the summer. But I just thought — the selfless devotion that brings a man or woman to die on the battlefield, I just thought that that might be sacred.
And when I listened to this woman and what she was saying, and what she was doing on TV, the only thing I could do to collect my thoughts was to go and walk among the finest men and women on this Earth. And you can always find them because they’re in Arlington National Cemetery. I went over there for an hour-and-a-half, walked among the stones, some of whom I put there because they were doing what I told them to do when they were killed.”
In those words, he spent every ounce of his military and political capital and goodwill on trying to save Trump from a simple apology or second phone call. Apparently, when he was a kid growing up, there were many things that were sacred that Trump has desecrated, including women, family and religion (to which Trump pays lip service, but I still so inept at lying about his own faith it is comically sad). Ah, for the good old days of yore, when military men like him knew women were “sacred,” so sacred they had to stay home, not in the military and definitely not in the officer ranks. And, to suggest that religion “seems to be gone as well,” begs belief in a country where religion is a litmus test for political office, which was never illustrated more clearly when Trump suddenly found religion when he realized he was going to run for President!
In short, he slaps down Trump again and again, by listing a few of the “sacred” things his boss abuses on a regular basis, but it all gets lost in the rest of the message, which is to attempt the evisceration of a “sacred” woman, who has apparently given up her sacredness for being black, wearing a hat and being in Congress! UFB!!!
I thought he was one of the good ones, yet Kelly has sold his soul....and for what? Trump?
What a waste of a distinguished reputation....and all thrown away to slapdown an uppity black woman for his boss.
