Resigning is abandoning the post. If he really thinks Trumps priorities are f’d up, he should say so, flat out, and stay there so he can represent what he thinks is the better way. Then Trump would be forced to fire him, and unambiguously reject that. By resigning he gives Trump the out of saying, well, he didn’t want to work with me, couldn’t hack it, and so forth. Mattis (like Colon Powell) chose protocol over principle, and, just like so many others, is slinking away into “retirement”. Disappointing.
Mattis says Trump deserves a Secretary of Defense who is more in line with what Trump wants.
What do the people of the United States of America deserve? He should have asked himself that before writing this letter.
Whatever we deserve, we need someone who will keep Trump’s worst impulses in check.
What Mattis should have done, IMHO, is to tell Trump he wasn’t going to precipitously withdraw troops from Syria. Then Trump could either deal with it or fire him, but given what a wuss Trump is when it comes to firing people, Mattis would likely stay on for awhile.
And he’ll be back in 6 weeks under Pence.
If only.
So, Mattis wrote this letter that is a fairly sharp rebuke of Trump, at least when it comes to foreign policy. But “fairly sharp” isn’t good enough. I fail to see why people who leave the Trump administration under circumstances like this don’t simply call a spade a spade. Is it out of respect for the office? (If the guy in the office has no respect for it, why should anyone else?) Fear of dividing the nation? Politeness? What? Why won’t Mattis go out and speak his mind to the public without pulling any punches? Why won’t Tillerson say, “I did call him a fucking moron. He IS a fucking moron!”
people are actually worried Trump is going to nuke another country? I think his main problem is giant ego and I don’t think he wants to risk screwing up the whole world which means he could get nuked as well.
You’re assuming that Trump has a coherent understanding of the notion of cause and effect.
You’re giving him far too much credit for reasoning ability. He has the cognitive ability of a three year old. I worry that when impeachment happens, he’ll open that nuclear football and let every single missile in the arsenal fly.
Very well said. Donald doesn’t deserve anything other than incarceration. The people of the world deserve to have adult supervision in the White House.
Am I wrong in thinking Mattis’ resignation may be, at long last, what causes GOP lawmakers to distance themselves from Trump? McConnell and Graham have sharply criticized the President, and Rubio saidMattis’ resignation makes it, “abundantly clear that we are headed towards a series of grave policy errors which will endanger our nation, damage our alliances & empower our adversaries."
Until this week, it’s been obvious that even if the House impeached for whatever reason, the Senate would not convict Trump. How big a leap is it to say that’s no longer a sure thing?
Trump has to be constantly talked out of using nukes to solve every problem already.
When people in this Message Board (devoted originally to discussion of the Straight Dope, you know, actual facts and reasonable opinions) make statements like those above about nuclear weapons and President Trump, they simply put all their other postings here at risk of being seen as worthless, coming from the same sort of unhinged reality as produces these nuclear statements. Come on, folks, get a grip. I dislike this President, but there is no way he’s going to unleash a nuclear attack just because he isn’t getting his way about something. :rolleyes:
according to who?
Are you willing to bet the survival of the planet on his temperament?
if he nukes Mexico then he won’t need the wall there won’t be anybody left to come to the US. Maybe that’s his plan.
I think that he probably won’t unleash a nuclear attack just because he’s throwing a temper tantrum. But this is one subject where my tolerance of risk is very low.
I have confidence the Navy and Air Force people who control the missiles won’t be pushing any buttons based on a tantrum.
I am not at all convinced that the order, once given, would not be carried out. We engineered a system for rapid response with the assumption that the commander in chief was both mature and sane.
I wonder how many missiles are now aimed at Mar A Lago? Real estate down there could be very cheap if they are hit.
NO way?
Sorry, not buying it.
I agree that the chance of Trump launching nukes is very small. Suppose it’s 1%. I don’t know about you, but given the consequences, to me that would be far too big a chance to take a chance on. What level of risk of Trump’s using nukes pre-emptively is something we should just have to accept? 0.5%? 0.2% 0.1%?
We could always hope for our own Stanislav Petrov.
But I’m sympathetic to DSYEsq…while the consequences are mindbogglingly high, the risk of Individual 1 launching a nuke out of spite is zero. I am, however, convinced that he would actually love being the guy who did.