Publisher's notebook
Kelly could be Trump’s Grant
The firing of White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, only 10 days after he was hired, certainly is even more evidence of the chaos that is the Trump Administration. Even his most ardent supporters would be hard pressed to say that Trump is doing the kind of job that they expected him to.
Trump, I think, brought in Scaramucci to help fire his establishment chief of staff, Reince Preibus. The fact that he had to bring in a crude and pugnacious friend to fire somebody for him is in itself an indictment of “The Donald’s” true abilities. So much for his “you’re fired” persona. It was just make believe.
Trump ran on the theme that he was a great business executive and that he would bring those management skills to the White House. I was never impressed with the man personally, but to be honest, I thought he would surround himself with able people the way you must do when running a successful business.
Trump is not the businessman he projects himself to be. His style is hardly what I would call management. He makes quick, impulsive decisions, often without consulting experts or even his own people. He reads almost nothing and gets his news from watching TV. I believe that his ridiculous tweeting habit is because he cannot comfortably put more than 140 characters together. There is nothing much “behind his curtain.” His tweets are like the bellowing of the Wizard of Oz. His attacks are merely to hide the weakness and vanity of the man behind the curtain.
Trump’s complete lack of discipline is an embarrassment to both the Republican Party — which he cares nothing about — and to the entire country, in my opinion.
All that being said, the firing of Reince Priebus as his chief of staff and replacing him with Gen. John Kelly has the potential to be the turning point in his so far disastrous presidency. No matter how he had to do it, it got done.
Sometimes you can be a good businessman just because you have good instincts. That might just be his real strength. But you can’t run a company, let alone a country, with instincts alone.
The hiring of Gen. Kelly, if Trump is smart enough to allow it, could be his “Gettysburg” moment. Let’s hope. As a Civil War history buff, I can’t help but draw parallels to Abraham Lincoln’s hiring of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to run the war effort.
Obviously, I am not comparing Trump to Lincoln. That would be a true insult to Lincoln. “Honest Abe” was smart, a great communicator and a hands-on leader.
What I am hoping is that Gen. Kelly is Trump’s Grant. Early in the war, Lincoln kept firing the Union’s early generals and the press thought he was a disaster as president. Those generals remind me of Reince Priebus, politically connected insiders who everybody thought knew what they were doing. But their instincts were terrible and did not jibe with those of their boss. They thought that a low-key, conservative approach would win the war.
Lincoln disagreed with that strategy. He wanted an offensive general that would take the fight to the enemy. Up to that point, it was the brilliant Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee who was taking the fight to them. Lincoln then found a like-minded general that agreed with his philosophy.
Grant told him that the problem was that the Northern armies had generally “acted separately and independently of each other.” Sound familiar? After Lincoln put him in charge of the federal armies on March 9, 1864, Grant declared “I am determined to stop this.” Grant told Lincoln “As we say out west, if a man can’t skin he must hold a leg while someone else does.”
I think Kelly is a skinner. A four-star Marine general known for discipline and organization, Kelly was the opposite of the free-wheeling and free-talking “Mooch” Scaramucci. A man like Trump needs someone like Kelly around him to stop the chaos. To get things done.
Lincoln’s Grant was a skinner. He ordered his generals to work together and tie up Lee so that he could send another “skinner” to get the job done. Grant selected the controversial young Major Gen. Philip Sheridan for that job. Lincoln wrote Grant about his plan, “I begin to see it. You will succeed. God bless you all.”
The “experts” said that Sheridan was too young, too inexperienced. That was right before he burned his way through the heart of Dixie while Grant’s unified leadership tied up Lee.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Trump, I think, brought in Scaramucci to help fire his establishment chief of staff, Reince Preibus. The fact that he had to bring in a crude and pugnacious friend to fire somebody for him is in itself an indictment of “The Donald’s” true abilities. So much for his “you’re fired” persona. It was just make believe.
Trump ran on the theme that he was a great business executive and that he would bring those management skills to the White House. I was never impressed with the man personally, but to be honest, I thought he would surround himself with able people the way you must do when running a successful business.
Trump is not the businessman he projects himself to be. His style is hardly what I would call management. He makes quick, impulsive decisions, often without consulting experts or even his own people. He reads almost nothing and gets his news from watching TV. I believe that his ridiculous tweeting habit is because he cannot comfortably put more than 140 characters together. There is nothing much “behind his curtain.” His tweets are like the bellowing of the Wizard of Oz. His attacks are merely to hide the weakness and vanity of the man behind the curtain.
Trump’s complete lack of discipline is an embarrassment to both the Republican Party — which he cares nothing about — and to the entire country, in my opinion.
All that being said, the firing of Reince Priebus as his chief of staff and replacing him with Gen. John Kelly has the potential to be the turning point in his so far disastrous presidency. No matter how he had to do it, it got done.
Sometimes you can be a good businessman just because you have good instincts. That might just be his real strength. But you can’t run a company, let alone a country, with instincts alone.
The hiring of Gen. Kelly, if Trump is smart enough to allow it, could be his “Gettysburg” moment. Let’s hope. As a Civil War history buff, I can’t help but draw parallels to Abraham Lincoln’s hiring of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to run the war effort.
Obviously, I am not comparing Trump to Lincoln. That would be a true insult to Lincoln. “Honest Abe” was smart, a great communicator and a hands-on leader.
What I am hoping is that Gen. Kelly is Trump’s Grant. Early in the war, Lincoln kept firing the Union’s early generals and the press thought he was a disaster as president. Those generals remind me of Reince Priebus, politically connected insiders who everybody thought knew what they were doing. But their instincts were terrible and did not jibe with those of their boss. They thought that a low-key, conservative approach would win the war.
Lincoln disagreed with that strategy. He wanted an offensive general that would take the fight to the enemy. Up to that point, it was the brilliant Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee who was taking the fight to them. Lincoln then found a like-minded general that agreed with his philosophy.
Grant told him that the problem was that the Northern armies had generally “acted separately and independently of each other.” Sound familiar? After Lincoln put him in charge of the federal armies on March 9, 1864, Grant declared “I am determined to stop this.” Grant told Lincoln “As we say out west, if a man can’t skin he must hold a leg while someone else does.”
I think Kelly is a skinner. A four-star Marine general known for discipline and organization, Kelly was the opposite of the free-wheeling and free-talking “Mooch” Scaramucci. A man like Trump needs someone like Kelly around him to stop the chaos. To get things done.
Lincoln’s Grant was a skinner. He ordered his generals to work together and tie up Lee so that he could send another “skinner” to get the job done. Grant selected the controversial young Major Gen. Philip Sheridan for that job. Lincoln wrote Grant about his plan, “I begin to see it. You will succeed. God bless you all.”
The “experts” said that Sheridan was too young, too inexperienced. That was right before he burned his way through the heart of Dixie while Grant’s unified leadership tied up Lee.
The rest, as they say, is history.