Remember How We Thought John Kelly Was The Guy Holding It All Together?
Honey, if Mueller is coming coming after Trump with intent to barbeque, then Chief of Staff John Kelly should at least be the potato salad.
White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly on Monday called Robert E. Lee “an honorable man” and said that “the lack of an ability to compromise” led to the Civil War, once again thrusting himself into the public spotlight on an emotionally charged issue.
Robert E Lee was not an honorable man. He was guilty of treason, and he did not behave like an honorable man in other areas of his life.
“I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man,” Kelly told Ingraham. “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.”
You ignorant, self indulgent piece of uneducated crap. No, it was not that way. Many truly honorable men like General Sam Houston left their state and the governorship when their state was wrong.
What is this idea about “lack of compromise”? How do you compromise slavery? Free 3/5th of all slaves?
Okay, Kelly, you’ve got me staying up nights again. Lord have mercy, it’s the uneducated leading the damn dumb.
John Kelly may prove to be the biggest disappointment of the Drumpf administration. Some of us who might not have been fooled about who Drumpf and his spawn and co-conspiritors are, were fooled by who John Kelly is. His empty barrel analogue referring to otherwise inoffensive Representative Frederica Wilson from Florida put his quiet plain-faced arrogance and racism on full display to the world. Go home General Kelly, your fifteen minutes expired.
1That boy ain’t right. Unfortunately, he fits right in to the Trump White House where ignorance and bigotry reign supreme.
2We have been made aware that there really is no one with integrity watching the store. Heaven help us when Trash Mouth arrives at the DMZ.
he was happiest working at dhs deporting brown people. how surprising is it that this hater works for a sex predator, self admitted, a racist and a liar? the cheeto dusted scrotum loves him some general kelly and kelly has no honor no integrity and needs to lose the honorific general
3The “compromise” Kelly referred to isn’t specified, so one can only guess. I suspect he’s referring to this:
Many states did not want new states to have the right to make slavery legal. Many other states felt that they had each had the right to decide on slavery and future states should retain that right as well.
Each side hoped to eventually reach enough of a majority in the federal gov’t to have their own way declared the law of the land. Neither would compromise out of fear that’d happen.
4On second thought, it’s also possible he’s referring to what’s called the “Corwin Amendment” (aka the “Ghost Amendment”) which wound up going nowhere.
5I dare say if we were asking Kelly to compromise concerning making maybe, some of his family slaves, he’d likely be somewhat hesitant!
6John Kelly praises a traitor who led a war against the United States, and Donald Trump is a racist, which is against everything these United States should represent. And Paul Ayn Ryan defends them both while the Majority Leader of the Senate’s wife works for Trump, making nearly 200 K per year, thus assuring continued Senate support for the fools in charge.
This century’s new Republican Party. And its ignorant base applauds it all.
7Where have all the flowers gone?
Don’t conflate what follows here with any intent to praise or whitewash Trump, Kelly or any of the cretins working for Trump. This is a comment on history and on people who have power over other people. Having said that, I want to point out that Gen. R.E. Lee was as honorable a person as Gen. Sherman and Sherman’s commander, Gen. U.S. Grant. Lee was as honorable as those U.S. Army Generals who slaughtered Native Americans. He was no less honorable than Gen. George Washington putting down democratic uprisings in the early Northeast, or of Gen. Doug MacArthur chasing protesting veterans off the Mall.
8There is a lot of history out there, more than enough to go around. Best not to be too judgmental.
If you haven’t read what Ta-Nehisi Coates says about “compromise,” you should. It should be required reading.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ta-nehisi-coates-john-kelly-civil-war
9@ George in Lee County
No Union general kidnapped any free African Americans and sold them into slavery, or reneged on his oath to the USA. In contrast to Lee, Grant freed the only slave he ever owned (a “legacy” from his father-in-law) and spent his presidency fighting the black codes being set up by those honorable men in the South.
To be clear, I’m not saying he never did anything wrong, only that I can clearly see daylight between the two.
George Thomas did the same as Grant, as far as he could, and he was a Virginian who kept his oath to his country. As pointed out by Ty Seidule of West Point, Lee was the only one of 6 Virginian colonels who turned traitor.
@ Sandy
Yes, indeed! Coates is spot on, as usual.
“[Marse Robert] is an honorable man. So are they all, all honorable men.”
10The whole issue of slavery in this country is messy and complicated. In the beginnings, the “North” was complicit with their ships. There are no innocents in this shameful history of enslaving others (except the enslaved). I wish Kelly, and other idiots, would stop trying to characterize slavery in simple-minded sound bites.
11Probably the dumbest ‘defense’ of Kelly was put out there by Sarah Chuck-a-load Sandbag: “he’s not political.” She obviously knows little or nothing about the flag ranks and how they achieve their rank.
Little military secret to which there are few exceptions: “The good lord looks after fools, drunks and field grade officers. Satan has charge of the flag ranks.”
12I have my own historical complaint, but nothing like “Lee County.” I agree that Kelly has lost his reputation — and already had with his lies about the ‘Sane Hatter’ — Rep. Wilson. I agree that Leeolatry is absurd. And, of course the sole and only cause of the war was the South’s fear that slavery would not be allowed to exoand beyond where it already was,
13‘
But as a pedantic [word mama wouldn’t like] I cringe at the misquoting and misunderstanding of the ‘3/5 clause,’ which was a loss for the Slave Power — because it only dealt with Congressional apportionment. The South wanted –in this one area only — to count slaves as full people so they’d get more Congressmen. The North protested for obvious reasons. But, without the compromise, there might have been two nations from the very start — and I honestly doubt either would have survived the revanchism of the British and Tories and the pressure from the French — far crueler slave masters — and Spanish. It’d make an interesting argument — and even video game.
‘
I could even make the case that, had the South not compromised, we might still have slavery in the South because the influence of the extra Representatives would have shut the abolitionists down.
Kelly should read some of the foundation documents for the various southeast and even other states. There is no compromise in the racism which was actually held high as a VIRTUE. He can stick compromise where the solar orbit could never ever shine.
14John F. Kelly calling Robert E. Lee “an honorable man” is a professional courtesy. One military man showing he understands why another military man did what he did, when they serve at the pleasure of their respective presidents.
History by omission.
15The piece from The Atlantic is great, and should also be required reading. I find it interesting that Lee asserts that Africans were better off in bondage here than being in Africa, and that superior whites were trying to improve the lives of blacks. That eventually God would elevate blacks to equality, and he (Lee) was hoping that would happen. So I guess the floggings were tough love, and the brine scrub was purely out of concern for hygiene. And the laws making it illegal to teach slaves to read? Obvious. Only God has that power.
16While the reactions to Kelly are absolutely correct, we must also remember that it was on the day of the Mueller announcements of indictments that Kelly suddenly appears and starts spewing forth crap. Diversion is the one true talent of the Trump administration. Fortunately (I hope)…. people are starting to pay attention and are keeping up the drumbeat against Trump and his evil spawn no matter how many shiny things are dangled before their eyes.
171.
His silence last summer as Trump belittled a Gold-Star family.
2.
His silence when Trump was revealed to be a serial pussy-groper of women.
3.
His ugliness while Sec. of Homeland Security.
3.
His silence when his boss said torch-bnearing Neo-Nazis and white supremacists were “very fine people”.
4.
His pathetic defense of a draft-dodger with 5-deferments who told the wife of a soldier and a mother of orphaned children: “Well, that’s what he signed up for!”
5.
His savage personal attack on a Congresswoman for publicizing what actually happened when Trump called that Gold Star widow.
6.
And now his demonstrated ignorance of history and defense of a traitor who took up arms against the Republic.
Eff John Kelly.
18I realize the following is a mixture of hearsay and fact.
My sainted father served with Al Gray when Al was a Captain bucking for Major and msf was a First Sergeant in the area. Msf marveled to me later at Gray’s appreciation bordering on worship of General Lee and his subordinate officers during the 1861-1865 Rebellion. Later as CMC, Gray instituted the Officer’s reading list, prominent on which was the three volume tome Lee’s Lieutenants by Douglas Southall Freeman. I don’t know when Lee’s Lieutenants came off that list but IMO Lee worship occurred at least informally in USMC during and for some time after Gray’s tenure as CMC from 1987-1991. Possibly Gen Kelly was propagandized during his later USMC service to worship Lee as well.
19Everyone should read Sandy’s link. Thanks, Sandy.
20Kelly is not a very honorable man, but who has honor among a pack of thieves? I believe, however, that he *is* the adult in the room. Too bad for the rest of us.
After all the ‘compromises’ accepted by the north (Missouri Compromise, fugitive slave laws, etc., etc.) the last compromise attempt, which did not get accepted was the Crittenden Compromise. Sen. John Crittenden of Kentucky proposed it in late 1860 and offered to guarantee the continued existence of slavery. The abolitionists in Congress had finally had enough:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crittenden_Compromise
21And the favorite response when you point to Coates’ take-down is, “Times were different then…” And they finger-wag the left for moral relativism??
Hypocrites, the lot of them.
22How would retired General Kelly like to debate that “compromise” thing with retired General Powell?
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