Kelly: "Adult in the room or Mini-me"

Satire from Ted Block

AROUND THE BLOCK

News with a Twist

John Kelly Pins Civil War on ‘Lack of Ability to Compromise’

Huckabee Sanders defends Kelly’s remarks: ‘He’s 4-star general’

In an appearance on Fox News program “The Ingraham Angle” Monday night, John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, resurrected the debate over Confederate monuments — previously fueled by his boss, President Trump, over the summer — and the Confederacy itself. 

He called Robert E. Lee “an honorable man who gave up his country to fight for his state,” said that “men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand,” and argued that “the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War.”

John Kelly is often described as the “adult in the room” in a disorganized, contentious White House and as the person who can “control Donald Trump’s impetuous ‘Twitter finger.’”

Instead, Kelly is he looking more and more like a Trump “mini-me?”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders immediately defended Kelly’s statements.

When asked by a reporter whether giving up your country to fight for your state sounds a lot like treason and anarchy, Huckabee Sanders said, “Look, General Kelly is a four-star general, a hero, and I find it treasonable on your part to question his remarks and even suggest that he would condone treason.”

To a question regarding Kelly’s remarks about good faith and conscience when the issue was slavery, Huckabee Sanders responded, “Look, General Kelly did not address slavery in his remarks and I think it is discourteous for you to bring up an issue General Kelly, a four-star general, didn’t even address.”

Regarding Kelly’s comments about his contention that an inability to compromise led to the Civil War, Huckabee Sanders was asked to comment on the many compromises that were made in the years leading up to the Civil War, including the Missouri Compromise (1820), the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) not to mention the Three-Fifths Compromise, which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of congressional districting.

“Look, as you all know those were all old compromises. Where was the compromise of 1861? It was six-years since that last compromise and, quite frankly, that one wasn't even labeled a compromise. I mean, why didn’t they call the Kansas-Missouri thingee a compromise so people like me and General Kelly, a four-star general, would understand that it was a compromise. Kind of sloppy, don’t you think? So for many of us, including General Kelly, the last compromise was in 1850. I think you’d agree that’s a long time between compromises.”

In ending her remarks on the issue Huckabee Sanders said, “Look, General Kelly agrees with the President who said, if you remember, ‘Why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?’

Adult in the room, indeed!