You Can't Serve Both Trump and America
The departure of Jim Mattis is proof that you cannot have it all.
The story is told of Jim Mattis, when he was the commanding general at Quantico, relieving a young lance corporal on Christmas. The rest of that wintry day, those entering the front gate of the Marine base were startled to see that the sentry was a general, checking passes and waving cars through so that a young man could spend the holiday with his family. It is the kind of behavior animated by sentiments Donald Trump could not understand, and it reflected a kind of code by which he cannot live.
The president misunderstood his secretary of defense. The Jim Mattis one saw on the battlefields of Afghanistan and in the, and he would compare it with the other two editions that he already owned.
