Call the Fire Department
There was a joke in the old Soviet Union under Premier Nikita Khrushchev:
“A man was running down the corridor of the Kremlin, shouting ‘Khrushchev is a fool, Khrushchev is a fool!!’ He was captured tried and sentenced to six months for insulting the Premier; and ten years for revealing a state secret.”
On the evening of September 5th, Trump Tweeted:
Does the so-called “Senior Administration Official” really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source? If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once.
It’s not particularly funny. An unnamed senior member of the White House Staff feels the President himself is a threat to the nation, and responded by publishing an anonymous article in the New York Times. The article outlined a White House where the staff is trying to protect the nation from the President’s erratic and dangerous behavior. They are doing so by ignoring the President’s directives, and re-directing his actions. In part the article states:
“(But) we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic. That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”
It all sounds noble; standing in the line against an amoral man, with responsibilities far over his head, with impulses that are anti-trade and anti-democratic. But these individuals have already made a decision that is detrimental to our nation. They have abandoned all of the Constitutional means of controlling an “out of control” President, and instead determined that THEY are the only ones to save the nation: the very definition of hubris.
Michael Steele, former Chairman of the Republican Party, said something that made a lot of sense yesterday: “…if your house is on fire, call the fire department.” These anonymous “resistors” are trying to control the fire themselves, and it clearly isn’t working. Maybe this anonymous plea is a cry for help, but like calling the fire department and not telling them where the fire is; it’s not very useful.
There has been an ongoing debate in the government since the day Trump was elected. Do you stay on with the government, and try to “protect” the nation, or do you quit. This debate has been titled “the adults in the room,” and we have taken some solace in the fact that Secretary Mattis, General Kelly and Director Coats are there. Maybe one of them wrote this piece, though I highly doubt it. But if it is one of these leaders, they need to do more than just make an anonymous call for help.
I’m not particularly interested in “outing” the source, but I am deeply interested in those in the White House who truly feel this way. They need to do more to precipitate action. If our nation is at risk, as they clearly think, and all of the circumstantial evidence supports, then it is up to the “adults in the room” to take the ultimate risk and speak out, publicly, for our nation.
Bob Woodward’s new book will provide even more evidence of the “chaos Presidency.” Woodward’s impeccable research style, backing most quotes with actual tapes of the conversations, provides a foundation for the New York Times article claims. So what is the next step, who is the “fire department?”
There has been a great deal of conversation about the 25th Amendment, that provides that a President “unable” to perform his duties, can be temporarily replaced by the Vice President. It takes the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet to replace him, but this would only provide a thirty-day respite.
The Constitution provides for several layers of agreement for government action. The lowest is a majority of both Houses of Congress, the standard for passing a law. The highest is for a change in the Constitution itself, with two-thirds of both Houses plus three-fourths of the states needing to be in agreement.
The standard for the 25thAmendment is that two-thirds of both the House and Senate must agree to permanently replace the President with the Vice President. This is higher than the standard for impeachment and removal; a simple majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate.
So if the White House is on fire, the fire department is the House of Representatives. The anonymous “protectors” of the United States need to take their plea to the House, even though it is the most Trump-supportive part of the government. They need to make their case to them, and to the public whose pressure will impact them. It’s sixty days before the entire House will be up for election, there is no better time to gain public influence. If they are going to “…call the fire department;” it’s now.
If the choice is stay in a high ranking job or quit, quitting is not the answer. But neither is writing an op-ed the answer. We’re lucky to have people like Mattis, (certainly Not the op-ed author) who stays out of the public eye, tolerates Trump and serves the Country.