Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
The fates of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and of both U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.S. Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe in recent weeks illustrated what happens when elected government leaders want to be bosses, not leaders.
Skripal’s poisoning in England by a chemical agent you can only find in Russia, a country ruled by an ex-KGB mob boss, and President Donald Trump’s ugly firings of Tillerson and McCabe were meant as warnings.
The lesson is you don’t mess with the boss, whether the boss has manipulated himself into one-man rule, or is an elected official who thinks his authority should never be questioned.
We know Russia’s tinpot dictator Vladimir Putin is lying when he says his government had nothing to do with the poisonings of Skripal and his daughter.
Putin knows we know. Every ex-agent of Russia or the Soviet Union who has dared to say or write a word against Putin also knows he knows we know he’s lying.
The move was designed to instill fear in any current or former Russian who has changed allegiance, not away from Russia but away from Putin, although I don’t think Putin knows the difference.
I am concerned that Trump, who thinks he was elected boss, not president, may be aspiring to that model.
He’s not systematically assassinating ex-patriot spies, but he handled the firings of Tillerson and McCabe like a vindictive schoolboy.
Tillerson’s dismissal and McCabe’s firing showed little respect for their service, their professionalism, their exceptional abilities or their dignity.
Their dismissals were designed to instill fear.
They were mean-spirited warnings of the consequences of disloyalty, not to the nation but to Trump. And I’m beginning to wonder if Trump can tell the difference, either.
Trump fired Tillerson in a dismissive tweet. Tillerson didn’t learn of it until he landed at home after state visits, and someone else had to surprise him with the move.
Trump crowed like a giggling, finger-pointing schoolyard bully as McCabe was fired two days before he was eligible for retirement, seeming to take joy in dismissing McCabe at the worst possible time in the meanest possible way.
I would hope that Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe on Trump’s command with some reluctance after hurriedly engineering a rationale for the move.
Both Tillerson and McCabe should have been dismissed respectfully with statements of gratitude and respect for their service.
McCabe apparently planned to retire immediately upon eligibility, anyway. Allowing that would have shown respect for his service.
Where there is respect for the rule of law, there is respect for the people whose job it is to execute and enforce the law.
Where there is rule by personal power, there is no respect, only fear.
I want to respect our president, but I’m beginning to think we may have more reason to fear him if he can’t be held in check.
Steve Hansen writes about our life and times from his perspective of a retired Tucumcari journalist. Contact him at: