John Kelly, a barrel diminished by half.
Chief of Staff John Kelly nailed it when he said “an empty barrel makes the most noise.” Of course, he wasn’t referring to the Tic-Tac-popping, Pussy-grabbing, Tweet-raging, military-service-evading libertine whose office adjoins his at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He was smearing Rep. Frederica Wilson, a congresswoman who, by ALL accounts, is a stalwart representative of the constituents in her district in Florida. And General Kelly’s smear — let’s call it yet another smear in a long line of Trump administration smears of African-American woman — ran far beyond the condolence call incident which ignited the most recent, unconscionable self-inflicted scandal to beset the Trump administration. No, Gen. Kelly, pitting his considerable reputation against hers, went further in his criticism of Rep. Wilson, slandering the representative by impugning her character and willfully misrepresenting her actions at a federal building dedication ceremony.
By now, we’ve all seen the 9 minute video of Rep. Wilson’s speech at that dedication ceremony, and know that Gen. Kelly flat-out lied about her words and actions. Reality be damned. Sarah Huckabee Sanders took to the press room podium the next day to double down on Kelly’s lie(s) and add a smear of her own: “All hat, no cattle.” Note to the Press Secretary: You should never refer to cows in any sentence. And before anyone here insist that I remove that sentence from this post, let me remind you how her boss describes people:
Pig — Rosie O’Donnell
Piece of ass — Ivanka
Little Marco — Marco Rubio
Lying Ted — Ted Cruz
Fake tits — Nancy O’Dell
Liddle Bob — Bob Corker
‘Wacky’ — Rep. Wilson
Crooked Hillary — Hillary Clinton
I could go on.
The bar for discourse is set by the man at the top. I mention this because Gen. Kelly, not satisfied with his smear of Wilson, continued by offering a criticism regarding the moral decay of our culture and the erosion of all things once held sacred at the hands of Gold Star Families like the Khans, and women who have abortions, and grand-staning, noisy, empty barrels like Rep. Wilson, without so much as a drop of irony dribbling out of the corner of his mouth as he spoke those words.
It has been written about Kelly (and all who enter Trump’s orbit) that his reputation has taken a hit. This analysis is wrong. Kelly has shown us who he is and what he believes. His military service and sacrifice are honorable, but those things do not make him above reproach. His proximity to Trump has not sullied his reputation. No. His proximity to Trump has REVEALED his character. He has a right to believe what he believes, but his service and sacrifice lend no greater credence to his political beliefs. He is not the adult we were hoping he was. An adult would publicly apologize for his smear. He was thought to be a full barrel, but we now know that the barrel was only ever half full, and Trump is siphoning off what little there is left in that barrel.
