When retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, then secretary of homeland security, was promoted to the chief of staff`s job, the White House was in turmoil.
Remember this was at the apex of the Anthony Scaramucci/Reince Priebus/Sean Spicer intramural bloodbath. Kelly was brought in to be the adult in the room, and instill some military order.
Kelly was able to restore a semblance of order, mainly by restricting access to the Oval Office, he kept away fringe players who filled his boss`s empty head with Fox News conspiracy theories.
Of course it`s impossible to make the White House run like clockwork when the president is a buffoon with the attention span of a colicky baby. Perhaps if Kelly had forced Trump to wear mittens that rendered him incapable of tweeting, he might have been able to really turn things around.
However Kelly was praised by conservatives and liberals alike for being the adult in the room, little did we know at the time that he was the adult racist in the room.
Kelly wasn`t perceived as a politician, but as retired military man who would keep Trump in check.
Kelly is stylistically different from Trump, while his boss is vulgar and bombastic, the retired general is refined and low-key. But it turns out that they share the same racist ideology.
Kelly`s racism first came to light when from the lectern in the Brady Briefing Room, he defended Trump from charges that he was insensitive to the widow of the black sergeant killed in action in Niger by savagely criticizing African-American Rep. Frederica Wilson. He gratuitously called her an “empty barrel” and flat-out lied that she had boasted of securing millions to build a new FBI field office in Miami during the dedication ceremony in 2015.
Kelly`s words in the midst of this racially-tinged scandal weren`t those of the adult in the room, or the calming words of a retired general, but the bellicose rhetoric of a racist politician. The only thing that can explain Kelly`s animus toward the respected congresswoman is racism.
Kelly`s interview this week on Fox News has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Kelly is as racist as his Dear Leader.
Kelly uttered these mind-blowing words in his interview with Laura Ingraham:
I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man. He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it`s different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.
These are the words of a racist, plain and simple. Kelly was arguing that the Union should have compromised with the slave-holding Southern states. You don`t compromise with slavery, you utterly slaughter all those seeking to preserve slavery. Case closed!
Trump, Kelly and all the other white supremacists in the White House can venerate Robert E. Lee, but those of us who love democracy and hate racism choose to honor Abraham Lincoln.
Trump isn`t going to let anybody into his orbit who doesn`t share his racist philosophy, only a fool is going to pin his hopes that an adult in the room will right the ship. Trump`s ship of state deserves to sink like the Titanic.
Follow Robert Paul Reyes on Twitter: http://twitter.com/robertpaulreyes
