My new book got its first review. Here’s another place to pre-order it.
A former speechwriter for Gen. Jim Mattis has a new book out called Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon With Secretary Mattis. Here’s an excerpt describing a Pentagon meeting with Trump, who comes across as a pentulant toddler, as you might imagine.
It probably would have been better if Mattis himself had written such a book, but the professional military guys have a deeply held aversion to being politically partisan. Some of them even choose to not vote:
By not voting, I am walking in the boot prints of our greatest officers: George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Patton, to name a few who didn’t vote while in uniform, and those of the modern era that tread the same path — David H. Petraeus, Martin Dempsey and, by all appearances, Mark A. Milley, the current Army chief of staff. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant is an especially instructive case, because he faced the grimmest temptation to tamper with the election of 1864 during the Civil War. And yet, crucially, Grant chose not to vote.
These giants lived in different times, but they all agreed: Military officers shouldn’t vote in national elections. As a profession, we’d do well to follow their lead. I know I will.
Maybe they should get a little more political now.
Why Trump Dropped His Idea to Hold the G7 at His Own Hotel. In brief, he heard from a great many Republicans that they weren’t going to defend his little plan to goose profits at his golf resort. Today he’s whining that he’s the victim of a “phony” emoluments clause. He also claims sole credit for containing ISIS:
“ISIS was all over the place … It was me…who captured them,” Trump told reporters at a cabinet meeting Monday in the White House. “I’m the one who did the capturing. I’m the one who knows more about it than you people or the fake pundits.”
And it was him that let them get away, I hear. What a guy.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has failed to put together a governing coalition, which means — well, I’m not sure what it means. You can read about it here. Maybe when the dust clear someone else will be prime minister. Or Netanyahu may stick around. It’s convoluted.
This week in the House: The upcoming testimony lineup.