The new White House chief of staff is being described as someone who won’t “suffer idiots.”
No surprise there. John Kelly is a retired Marine Corps general. He’s been tested in combat during his 45 years in uniform. He has suffered grievous tragedy with the loss of his son who was killed in action in Afghanistan. Until this week, he led the Department of Homeland Security. Then the president of the United States asked him to take over as White House chief of staff.
Those who know Gen. Kelly say he brooks no foolishness.
That brings us to the fundamental point. The most successful White House chiefs of staff control virtually every word that flows from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. In this age of social media, that should include the Twitter network operated by Donald John Trump.
Is the new chief of staff going to demand from the president that he — as in Kelly — has complete control? Will the chief be able to screen the tweets the president decides to fire off? Will he have veto power over the idiocy that occasionally flies into cyber space?
According to The Washington Post: “He knows how to do this: with common sense and good leadership,” said Kelly’s longtime friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer frank opinions. “He won’t suffer idiots and fools.”
Idiots and fools, eh?
The idiot in chief also is the fool in chief. They are the same man, who was elected president of the United States in a campaign that defied virtually every single bit of conventional wisdom known to politics.
He vowed to become “more presidential” once he took office. Trump has veered precisely into the opposite direction, as he has become less presidential.
It now falls on the new White House chief of staff to rein in The Boss. I’m unsure how Gen. Kelly is going to harness the most ignorant man ever to hold the highest office in the land.
It’s been said that former chief of staff Reince Priebus’s tenure is the shortest in U.S. history. If the new guy doesn’t get some guarantees from the president that he’ll actually get to take charge of the staff, Priebus’s record may be smashed in a matter of days.