Comes now retired Gen. John Kelly, the second of President Trump\u2019s chiefs of staff to be discarded. Days before departing, he paused for an interview with the Los Angeles Times. It was an extended exercise in self-absolution.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t blame him for Trump\u2019s border-wall obsession. \u201cTo be honest, it\u2019s not a wall,\u201d Kelly disclosed, insisting \u201cwe left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration.\u201d (Trump tweeted: \u201cAn all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t blame Kelly for Trump\u2019s fabricated \u201ccrisis\u201d at the southern border. \u201cIf you want to stop illegal immigration, stop U.S. demand for drugs and expand economic opportunity\u201d in Central America, Kelly proposed.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t blame him for Trump\u2019s claims that Hispanic immigrants spread violence and drugs. \u201cIllegal immigrants, overwhelmingly, are not bad people,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n
And don\u2019t blame him for the travel ban or the family separation policies, either. Rather, he argued, he should be judged for what Trump didn\u2019t do: withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan (which he\u2019s doing now), pull troops out of South Korea or withdraw from NATO (which remain uncertain).<\/p>\n
If we judge success by things that didn\u2019t happen, we should also credit Kelly for avoiding a zombie apocalypse.<\/p>\n
Kelly served his country honorably for decades. But there\u2019s nothing courageous in announcing, on the way out the door, that he didn\u2019t agree with many awful things Trump did on his watch. There was, once, a good argument that qualified people, by taking administration jobs, could temper Trump\u2019s worst instincts. But it turned out Trump was not to be tempered. Those who disagreed with the madness had an obligation to resign, or at least to speak out \u2013 not to wash their hands of responsibility after the fact.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t blame Rex Tillerson. The ousted secretary of state told Bob Schieffer of CBS News he reined in Trump by saying \u201cyou can\u2019t do it that way. It violates the law. It violates a treaty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t blame Jim Mattis. The former defense secretary waited until resigning to state his disagreements with Trump over \u201ctreating allies with respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t blame Reince Priebus. Trump\u2019s first chief of staff spoke up about Trump\u2019s chaos after he was ousted, telling Chris Whipple: \u201cTake everything you\u2019ve heard and multiply it by 50.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t blame Nikki Haley. Trump\u2019s ambassador to the United Nations, in a parting shot, said \u201cour opponents are not evil. They\u2019re just our opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t blame Gary Cohn. The economic adviser decried Trump\u2019s trade war and defended the Fed\u2019s interest-rate policy against Trump\u2019s criticism (\u201cI don\u2019t think he should make comments on any independent agency\u201d).<\/p>\n
Also, don\u2019t blame Omarosa Manigault Newman (she knew Trump was a racist but took a job in his White House anyway) or Michael Cohen (at his sentencing, the president\u2019s former personal lawyer said his loyalty to Trump led him to \u201ccover up his dirty deeds\u201d) or Steve Bannon (after he departed the White House, the former top strategist suggested Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort had engaged in \u201ctreasonous\u201d and \u201cunpatriotic\u201d behavior).<\/p>\n
The self-absolution extends into the diaspora of Trump apologists. Rep. Mia Love, the Utah Republican, in defeat, denounced Trump for operating with \u201cno real relationships, just convenient transactions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Better late than never? Perhaps. Those taking parting shots are certainly more honorable than those who get paid to defend Trump on the airwaves. The post-employment critics also compare favorably with Mick Mulvaney, who called Trump a \u201cterrible human being\u201d before becoming Trump\u2019s budget director and now acting chief of staff.<\/p>\n
But the after-the-fact criticism seems self-serving \u2013 a way for Trump enablers to rebuild their reputations and find new jobs. Tucker Carlson, an unstinting Trump booster, used the anonymity of a German-language weekly to put on the record that he questions Trump\u2019s competence, knowledge, self-aggrandizement and personnel choices.<\/p>\n
Even Carlson, though, is braver than the anonymous Trump official who wrote The New York Times op-ed about efforts to sabotage Trump from within. How long before the author emerges to claim credit \u2013 and perhaps a book contract? Proposed title: Don\u2019t Blame Me.<\/p>\n
Dana Milbank is a columnist for The Washington Post.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" now retired Gen. John Kelly, the second of President Trump\u2019s chiefs of staff to be discarded. Days before departing, he paused for an interview with the Los Angeles Times. It was an extended exercise in self-absolution. Don\u2019t blame him for Trump\u2019s border-wall obsession. \u201cTo be honest, it\u2019s not a wall,\u201d Kelly disclosed, insisting \u201cwe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5758,6324],"tags":[],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-96408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columnists","category-columnists-dana-milbank"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96408"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=96408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}