Posted on 06/05/2020 2:14:03 PM PDT by Beave Meister
Hearing what Gen “Mad Dog” Mattis had to say today, I am reminded of something I learned about Trump’s pick for Sec Def during the transition, as the President-elect was about to take the oath of office. Several sources inside the transition team confirmed...
They were shocked by who Mattis wanted as his number 2 - he was pushing for Michelle Flournoy, the same person HRC had reportedly picked to lead DOD in her Administration, acc to sources/articles at the time, such as one Politico published in Nov 2016. They put it this way:
“THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION - HILLARY CLINTON’S HISTORY-MAKING DEFENSE SECRETARY IN WAITING”.
Always wondered why Mattis would want someone like that at his side? Seems unlikely she would have been loyal to the President she would have served - was he?
Men like him knew Gen Mike Flynn was loyal to the US not Russia, yet they said nothing? As Sec Def, Mattis would have had access to all intelligence. What happened to that military code of honor in Flynn’s case? What about his Commander-in-Chief? He was silent then - but not now.
(Excerpt) Read more at threadreaderapp.com ...
“Ironically, one thing I actually believed from his reality show that he was good at picking people. He is not.“
Not fair.
The problem is that almost 100% of those people who seek public service are heavily biased against individual liberty.
Individual liberty and limited government are the central principles upon which this self-governing Republic was founded - and almost everyone actually in the government opposes those very principles.
If they didn’t, they would have remained in the private sector.
Reagan faced the same problem - anyone he could convince to join his administration was already a proven statist.
I deal with the same issue at the local level: our township’s borough council is constantly enacting overreaching ordinances and making busybody decisions that meddle in everyone’s lives for no good reason.
This is because the type of person who is interested in being on the town council is a proven busy body control freak or they wouldn’t be interested. Control freaks like to control other people. That’s what they do.
Liberty loving people rarely seek a job in government - when they do, they find no kindred spirits who share their love of liberty.
When I complain, people say “Then get involved! Run for office! I’d vote for you!” I say “That’s just it - being on town council is the very last thing I want to do - I just want to be left alone”.
I just want everyone to mind their own business - if they did we would need no town council. Or maybe the whole town could meet once or twice a year and see if there were any decisions that needed to be made.
The type of person that “gets involved” always thinks all sorts of stuff urgently needs to be done and everything needs to be regulated and controlled. That requires a lot of tax revenue - and it grows, and grows - full of hyper activist types.
You go in there and say you want to shrink government - NOBODY is on your side.
I don’t think it’s surprising at all.
People here on FR seem to have no idea what a gargantuan job staffing the federal government is. Some time, go to D.C. and walk down the Old Executive Office Building. These are people supposedly “close” to the president. You see floor upon floor, office upon office of “Assistant Associate to White House Boot Polishing” kind of titles.
When Reagan came in, his transition was heralded as the greatest ever. Harvard Business School wrote it up as a case study. Why? Because Ed Meese worked with Heritage Foundation from the Convention on to identify candidates in every single position, and the vetting started the day after the election. They had almost the top 300 candidates vetted by FEBRUARY. This is insane, but it would not have been possible without a massive connected think tank like Heritage.
Well, Trump didn’t have any such thing. Nothing even close. First, no one thought he would win, so no one put out any effort on the transition. (I sent Sessions, his head of Transition, a long memo in the summer of 2016 outlining the Reagan success and urging him to identify at least 100 key people to have vetted before March). Second, the only ones around who had connections to people who “knew how to do the job” were GOPe and Bushies. They, of course, were only to happy to help. And finally, even when people had the creds, it didn’t mean they were Trumpers (i.e., Tillerson, Kelly, Mattis, McMaster).
If you want a real-world look at this in action, go no further than Stalin. He purged virtually ALL of the Soviet military leadership in the early 1930s because he didn’t trust them. But he paid a very heavy price. His replacements were loyal, but utterly inexperienced. In 1941 he found out just how inexperienced they were-—but most of them learned. However, it cost the Soviets millions of casualties and nearly lost the war before they figured it out.
Trump is in the same spot, though the purge is much slower and piecemeal due to the Senate confirmation process. I should mention that was a fourth, major hurdle Trump had that Reagan didn’t have. Reagan’s senate was committed to getting his guys in. Trump’s senate was a bunch of butthurt, has-been, neverTrump snakes who STILL haven’t approved all his nominees.
This is a major reason he can’t fire Wray. The senate won’t confirm a real Swamp Drainer.
I’m with you on Pence. Hope he doesn’t plan to run in 2024 because there is no way he gets my vote. I don’t trust the guy.
Trump hired him because he had NOBODY EKSE!! He didn't have anyone who wanted to work with Trump.
Great point!! I don’t think Trump had ANY idea that Democrats were SO EVIL!
That was another big personnel mistake by Trump. And you know that was all him. Nobody was out there lobbying for Omarosa.
I remembered the Kelly taping but not the Mattis taping. Sometimes you can be too nice!
Trump being new to the SWAMP of course thought he could trust the higher ups in the military, hard lesson to learn that your military is as corrupt and swampy as the rest of the damn government!! Obama did a GREAT job of weaponizing the ENTIRE government the ONLY damn thing he EVER DID as POTUS, BASTARD!!
Maybe he'll give us the answer if he writes his memoirs. The man may not even want to do that once he's out of office. But, I really think he will want his side of the story told, and I will definitely buy it. I pray for his safety every day, and hope he has many years left to wind down after 8 years of being attacked every day.
Good posting!
I seem to recall that Obama canned many senior military officers and replaced them with people who bought into his BS.
Good posting.
Plus... Trump expelled many of the regulations of the BLM and EPA.
Living up to your name again...
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