Have you noticed? You cannot and must not criticize Mattis, we are told, because of his past heroic service in the military. Of course, fire away at Mike Flynn. Anything goes, including the violation of his civil liberties and constitutional rights. And I note that Mattis has been utterly silent about the unconstitutional attack by the Obama administration on his former military colleague. He wasn’t moved to issue a statement of any kind. Or the use of the FBI, CIA, NSC, etc., to take out candidate Trump and then President Trump with lies about Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. Not a word about criminalizing politics and a coup against Trump. But when the nation is under assault, cities are being burned and looted, citizens are being brutalized and killed, our first responders are being targeted, and Marxist-anarchist groups like Antifa are seeking to overthrow the country, Mattis clings to a lie about events surrounding Lafayette Park to accuse the president of undermining the Constitution. He even references the Nazis. Absolutely disgraceful. And Mattis is supposed to be some kind of intellectual and historian? Pathetic.
What Mattis did yesterday was opportunistic and disgraceful. He resigned, or was fired, because he refused to support the legitimate policy-decisions of an elected president, the commander-in-chief. He disagreed with Trump pulling out of the Iran deal. He disagreed with Trump refusing to use precious defense dollars on climate change initiatives in the military. He resisted the replacement of Obama holdovers at the Pentagon. He opposed the president’s decision to significantly reduce troop levels in Syria and Afghanistan. And now, Mattis seeks to get even.
Of course, Mattis even cites Abraham Lincoln to justify his opportunism. Well, let me educate the retired general. I consider Lincoln to be the second greatest president in American history, after Washington, but what would Mattis have said were he alive back then? I suspect he would have resigned or have been fired by Lincoln. You see, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, shut down nearly 300 newspapers, arrested journalists, arrested and deported a congressman from Ohio, etc. General Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground, and burned everything in sight on the Union’s march through Georgia, including homes and businesses, and took all livestock, wheat, and corn for the Army. In other words, Lincoln did whatever was necessary to win the Civil War. And he finally found a general, after firing several, who believed as he did, that whatever had to be done must be done to end the war — U.S. Grant.
President Trump has been extremely careful and prudential in his use of force, both overseas and at home. He has yet to invoke the Insurrection Act, which has been used by 6 presidents in the last 100 years, including Bush 41 and Bush 43. Mattis’s statement, issued at a time of internal conflict and national strife, undermining efforts by law enforcement and the National Guard to quell the rioting in Democrat-controlled cities run by incompetent mayors, was disgusting. The citizens of these cities and states are also citizens of the United States. And the president clearly feels that he must protect them. And, again, to use the bogus media reports about Lafayette Park as a pretext to accuse the president of abusing the military for political ends requires Mattis to ignore the U.S. Park Police’s official statement explaining exactly what happened that day, which contradicts his narrative and statement. This was a dishonest and dishonorable act intended to undermine the president’s ability to act. Mattis intended to provide fodder for the president’s political and media enemies, and that’s exactly what he did. In this, ex-general or not, he deserves our contempt.
Finally, President Trump had nothing to do with what is taking place in these cities. In fact, he immediately directed the Justice Department to provide assistance to state and local law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting the killing of George Floyd. The federal civil rights division, criminal division, and all other elements of federal law enforcement acted with lightening speed to ensure that justice would be done. The president has repeatedly spoken in conciliatory tones about the awful killing of Mr. Floyd. The entire nation was and is united behind the prosecution of this ex-police officers. But the Democrat leadership, the media, and the Left generally see this as another opportunity to viciously attack him and defeat him. And Mattis knowingly and intentionally played right into this.
Trump’s policy and economic record in addressing inner city problems far exceeds both Obama’s and Bush’s 16-year presidencies combined. Both speak of systemic racism, trashing all Americans as irretrievably racist, whether they know it or not. What an appalling smear of we, the people, and the greatest nation on earth. What a detestable lie about the men and women, of all races and backgrounds, who work hard everyday and built this country into the world’s beacon of liberty. And the two ex-presidents say little about the victims of the rioting and looting, the war on first responders, etc., as they are more concerned about the legacies and what the media will think of them. Meanwhile, they failed the people and communities they now claim to speak for, as Bush paints and pontificates from his Waco ranch, and Obama enriches himself like no ex-president in American history.
If you care, my views were more fully discussed on last evening’s radio show, which can be found here.