Right now, I hope General Kelly continues to be the buffer between us and the president.

Last edited by Just Fred (10/19/2017 6:25 pm)

I would agree till the point Kelly called Rep Wilson an "empty barrell". I don't know Kelley or Wilson, but that Kelley was "stunned" that Wilson might have been listening in on the call tells me no one updated him on the relationship of Wilson to the fallen soldier and that when the call came in she was accompanying the mother to the airport to retrieve her son's body. 

If anything Trump is the one that brought this whole thing into the political limelight up when he erroneously told that pervious Presidents did not call any of the fallen and further drug Kelly's own son into the politics of it. 

Further Kelley's own words confirmed that Trump was not telling the truth when claiming that the mother and Rep Wilson lied. 

That it was likely not a good choice of words to console someone who is grieving goes without saying. 

Unfortunately all these are comments that they all have to live with right or wrong. 

The bigger issue here is not this but just what happened to these men who were caught up in this ambush in Niger. There are too many unanswered questions at this moment that need answers. 

I know I am jaded after watching PBS's Vietnam (an era I lived through) about what the government tells us about things like this and I am suspicious we will get a coverup on this one if we do not press for the whole story. 

 

I would agree till the point Kelly called Rep Wilson an "empty barrell". I don't know Kelley or Wilson, but that Kelley was "stunned" that Wilson might have been listening in on the call tells me no one updated him on the relationship of Wilson to the fallen soldier and that when the call came in she was accompanying the mother to the airport to retrieve her son's body. 

I would agree.  Was the phone call taken on a speakerphone?  If so, when a call is taken from someone, I'm not sure you could say someone else was 'listening in' when two people are sitting next to eachother.
 

Rongone wrote:

From my perspective, if the phone message Trump voiced to the widow of Sgt. Johnson was somehow misconstrued by her or her mother it was the responsibility of the president to stand up immediately, privately or publicly, and further express his condolences and apologize for the misunderstanding of his message. I think Rep. Wilson was totally out of line for her public statements, purely for the chance to politicize the situation, regarding the notification.

Trump, rather than taking responsibility and apologizing, sent out Kelly to perform his mea culpa because Trump is incapable of admitting a mistake or showing empathy. Rep. Wilson decided this would be an opportunity to criticize Trump and get her name in the news. This is apparently something she revels in as her idea of a “public servant”. In my mind she was wrong in the manner she chose to do this.

All that being said, I still stand by my statements in post #1 about General Kelly’s presentation yesterday.

I think Kelly is generally a good man. Here are my two beefs 

1) I believe he helped Trump in deciding to use the "he knew what he was signing up for" because another military person used that in helping him understand his own son's death. In my mind at least I believe there is an incredible difference in how a military to military would interpret that vs a grieving wife or mother. I undrstand how they might be totally taken back and offended by such a remark. 

2) By venturing into calling Wilson "a hollow barrel" Kelly himself decided into further making this political. First of by not understanding the relationship of Wilson to the family he was totally misinformed when he said he was "stunned about Wilson being part of hearing the conversation" and why she might have been on the call (she was in the car with the family on the way to the airport to retrieve the soldier's body along with a Master Sargent as well). Lastly the "hollow barrel" comment was made because of an earlier comment Wilson made about donations for an FBI field office. Apparently he might have been also off base on that one too from what I have read. 

Lastly not related to Kelly but rather Trump , as I pointed out in earlier post, Kelly's statments only further proved Trump to be a liar in contending that Johnson's mother and WIlson were lying about the verbiage that he used. Obviously they were NOT lying.