{"id":23830,"date":"2017-08-13T23:55:54","date_gmt":"2017-08-13T23:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=23830"},"modified":"2017-08-13T23:55:54","modified_gmt":"2017-08-13T23:55:54","slug":"white-house-faces-another-moment-of-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=23830","title":{"rendered":"White House faces another moment of truth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/90.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-23831\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/90-300x163.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"163\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/90-300x163.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/90-768x416.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/90-1024x555.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/90.jpg 1160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As if the White House doesn&#8217;t have enough centers of conflict within its walls, now we hear about yet another feud erupting between two of the president&#8217;s closest advisers.<\/p>\n<p>In one corner is <strong>Stephen Bannon<\/strong>, the uber nationalist and former head of Breitbart News and a guy known for his rather harsh views about &#8220;globalism.&#8221; In the other corner is Army Lt. Gen. <strong>H.R. McMaster,<\/strong> the brilliant military strategist who now serves as Donald John Trump Sr.&#8217;s national security adviser.<\/p>\n<p>The White House is getting caught up in a growing potential crisis in North Korea. The president needs close aides nearby to give him sound advice on how to handle this matter.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2017\/08\/13\/mcmaster-bannon-white-house-241588\">McMaster made the rounds <\/a>today on news talk shows to talk about the Korea issue &#8212; and about his relationship with Bannon. McMaster declined to say he could work with Bannon. He soft-shoed his way all around the questions.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, this is another test for the White House, which now is being run day-to-day by another general-grade officer, former Marine Gen. John Kelly, the president&#8217;s newly named chief of staff. It now falls on Kelly to ensure that the White House functions like a &#8220;fine-tuned machine,&#8221; which is now Trump once described his dysfunctional administration.<\/p>\n<p>My sincere hope is that McMaster emerges as the man who&#8217;s standing if he, indeed, is engaged in a battle with Bannon.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t trust Bannon as far as I can throw my big home office desk. He lacks the background to serve as a &#8220;senior policy adviser&#8221; to the president of the United States. He is a far-right provocateur and a <em>damn scary dude, to boot!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>McMaster is a grownup with tremendous combat experience. He has emerged as a brilliant strategist and he is the kind of serious-minded adviser who &#8212; if he&#8217;s given the chance &#8212; can serve the president and the nation with distinction.<\/p>\n<p>All of this, of course, relies on the president&#8217;s judgment.<\/p>\n<p>Will he heed the voice in his head that tells him to trust the national security pro or does he rely instead on the right-wing flamethrower?<\/p>\n<p>As <em>hopeful<\/em> as I want to be on how this turns out, I am not willing to bet the mortgage the president will do what is right for the nation.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As if the White House doesn&#8217;t have enough centers of conflict within its walls, now we hear about yet another feud erupting between two of the president&#8217;s closest advisers. In one corner is Stephen Bannon, the uber nationalist and former head of Breitbart News and a guy known for his rather harsh views about &#8220;globalism.&#8221; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=23830\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">White House faces another moment of truth<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1424,6944,6868,3213,7097,5246],"class_list":["post-23830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-hr-mcmaster","tag-john-kelly","tag-national-security-adviser","tag-stephen-bannon","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23832,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23830\/revisions\/23832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}