Undoubtedly, the Trump White House must have set modern records for its repeated promises of presidential transparency.
Unfortunately, what Team Trump has delivered so far can only be called translucency.
We have been watching the Trump presidency in action as a diffused reality, witnessed through a lens that is merely a frosted window. We see movement and we hear explanations; but sometimes it all looks shadowy, and occasionally the action looks downright shady. All we know for sure is that Team Trump's actions rarely seem to match its words.
Right now, we have been staring through our translucent lens at the sad and frankly shocking mal-performance of President Donald Trump's second White House chief of staff, the highly admired four-star Marine Gen. John Kelly.
Rarely have I been as wrong about a top government official as I was when Trump brought in Kelly, his secretary of homeland security, to replace his original chief of staff, the ineffectual Reince Priebus. Kelly had won powerful accolades from former Defense Secretaries Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, having served as their military aide. Panetta, an old friend, and Gates, whom I also admire, praised Kelly as a no-nonsense guy who would bring order to the White House.
I hoped and believed Kelly would be a desperately needed good influence on our president, who very much wanted to surround himself with generals who would bring a layer of respect to his presidency. I hoped Kelly would bring at least some self-discipline and common-sense to our tweet-addicted president, at a time when U.S. intelligence agency heads agree our democracy continues to be under attack by the Russians. I also thought Kelly, whom I believed valued honesty, would bring a level of veracity to a presidency that had become infamous for often being loose with the truth and other times flat-out lying to Americans. (Trump's Day One bragging about record inaugural crowd size comes to mind.)
It turned out that in some ways, Kelly is actually much like Trump-especially when it comes to inflexible, hardline politics that has at its core a very perceptible hate-based reflex that can erupt publicly at the impolitic moments, in the most imprudent ways.
Last October, Kelly came out to brief White House reporters-but what was intended to be a demonstration of expertise and control erupted into a tirade and outright lie about a liberal African-American member of Congress, Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.). Kelly falsely claimed that at a dedication of an FBI building in South Florida she had "talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding" for a new FBI building in South Florida. But video of that dedication showed she had actually told a heartwarming story: how the FBI had asked that the building be named for two FBI agents slain in the line of duty-and so the liberal Democratic congresswoman said she had called the Republican House Speaker John Boehner and then Florida's Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and together that bipartisan team got the job done. Shockingly, even when confronted with the video reality, the four-star Marine general (whom I had assumed was a pillar of honesty) has refused to apologize to the African-American liberal to this day.
This month, Kelly crudely disparaged undocumented immigrants who are categorized as "dreamers" (brought to the U.S. illegally as children, grew up here, lived honorably and paid taxes in the only homeland they'd ever known). Kelly blurted that "dreamers" (predominantly Latino) who never registered may have been "too lazy to get off their asses." Shameful. Perhaps they lacked the required $460 application fee-and many feared they'd be deported after applying.
Most stunningly, Kelly has been criticized for permitting staff secretary Rob Porter to remain on the job even though the FBI informed the White House months ago that he'd been investigated for abusing his first and second wives and a girlfriend. Also, Porter wasn't approved for his full security clearance, but had been allowed to deliver highly classified documents to the president. And Kelly ordered his staff and press office to issue timelines that were later contradicted by the FBI. And that has led many White House staff members to complain to reporters that they considered Kelly untruthful.
We all remember Reality TV star Trump's signature shout at the end of each "Apprentice" episode. So we can all imagine what 2016 Candidate Trump would have shouted at rallies if President Barack Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had permitted a chief of staff to so disregard spousal abuse and security clearance matters. And he'd be right.
"You're fired."