Dear General......

From The Daily Beast 

Dear General Kelly,

Oh my! Where to begin with you? So much to say, so little time!

Let me start with an apology. I apologize for so badly misjudging you. Like so many others, I assumed (and you know what happens when you ASS-U-ME!) that you would bring some discipline and order to the chaos that is the White House of DJT. I apologize for leaping to that conclusion the resulting fall has been painful. I do most abjectly apologize. My guess is that there is only one person on the planet who may be qualified for that role and it ain't you. You're very clearly not it. Evidence abounds.

Evidence of your unsuitability for high office? The Rob Porter Affair. I must say that I understand that you are a military man and y'all are, yunno, *different*. I appreciate that for you mission matters more than morality but you ain't on the battlefield John, and the White House staffers ain't soldiers in the trenches. Morality matters dude! Decency matters! Abiding by the law...... ok lemme stop cuz your posse ain't about that life. Still though, spousal abuse is not an uncrossable line? Again, lemme stop cuz I know your boss has some issues in this regard. Allegedly. 

I appreciate that you valued the work of former staff secretary Porter, but his problems sir, his problems! And yes, if a man cannot control his rages and violently assaults his ex-wives/girlfriends, he has problems, serious ones. Any man who stands accused of physically assaulting not one but two ex-wives oughtn't to be anywhere near the House of White, not even this vile one! No one should have to tell you this dear John, but apparently we do....which makes me wonder about other things like reports of rape, physical violence and sexual harassment among your troops.

To be clear, I don't hold you personally responsible for the numbers of incidents but I sure do think that given your response to the Porter situation, a few questions about how you responded to incidents of sexual violence against the women in your command could reasonably be asked. Would women under your leadership report attacks more or less frequently? Would they have known better than to initiate complaints against those who had harmed them? I mean, given your willingness to overlook Porter's 'alleged' (never mind the photographic evidence) odious behavior, who could blame me for having questions?

And then there's your loose-lipped ugliness about immigrants. Lawd! Lemme ask you a question: how do you feel about immigrant soldiers, documented and undocumented ones? They shoot just as well, they shed just as much *enemy* blood, and when they're hurt, they bleed the same red as your good native born (White) soldier. Still, I'm pretty sure you have them filed in some different category of humanity from the rest. Why wouldn't you? Your comments about non-DACA registered immigrant children being "too lazy to get up off their asses" refers. Those kinds of words don't fall out of the side of one's mouth accidentally. Those kinds of words were first fully-formed thoughts, cogitated and contemplated at length long before they issued forth from your mouth.

The lack of insight you show only exposes your ugly privilege. It doesn't even occur to you that there's a reasonable calculation to not signing up for DACA. It is people like you, Jefferson Beauregard Se(ce)ssions, Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Jared/Ivanka and all 30+ million of your boss' voters who are the reason DACA-eligible kids didn't sign up. The possibility of an administration hell bent on some version of ethnic cleansing is the reason folk ain't want to put their names on any damn list. You and those you represent are why they were afraid. And you  have proved their fears well-grounded. But such is the power of privilege that none of that occurs to you. 

For those of us looking on, aghast, we know that the way in which you are talking about these young people is born out of the same funky swamp in which fetid policy grows. We know this. We have long known this. There is no separating ugly prose from ugly policy dear general. We know this too.

General, you expose yourself as being entirely as devoid of decency as your boss and the entirety of his staff. Truly, you prove the maxim, "It takes one to know one", or better put, "It takes one to work with one". We should have expected no less really. In a White House full of ravening wolves, only another ravening wolf - likely a more vicious one - could possibly hold sway.

I'm surprised at my surprise.