Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Donald J. Trump continues to interview and select candidates for appointment to cabinet positions. One cannot help but ponder that very few of those Trump has selected have escaped scathing criticism heaped on them by politicians and the media.
Sen. Jeff Sessions is pilloried as a racist. Georgia Rep. Tom Price is not only an opponent of women’s health programs, he is an enemy of the poor and the aged. Scott Pruitt is a “longtime enemy of the EPA” and has been a puppet of the fossil fuel industry.
The New York Times reports that, “Big-city mayors and housing experts are nervous about the idea of a billionaire real estate developer in the White House. Now President-elect Donald J. Trump has picked Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon with no housing experience, as his nominee for secretary of Housing and Urban Development — and high anxiety has set in.”
And well high anxiety should set in. They are staring at someone who has a firm grasp of real estate development and someone else whose housing experience includes a mother who worked three jobs to keep them out of public housing.
My chief opprobrium is reserved for those elected officials who pontificate on the fact that Trump is surrounding himself with “generals.”
Generals James Mattis, John Kelly and Michael Flynn have served their country faithfully for a combined century and more.
Mattis does not care for the nickname, “Mad Dog” and in one of his lesser known quotes has told Marines, “The most important six inches on the battlefield is between your ears.”
Flynn has been a staunch opponent of the current administration’s strategy on terrorism.
Kelly lost his son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, in Afghanistan, during November 2010. Four days later he delivered an extraordinary speech to the Semper Fi Society in St. Louis. In part Kelly stated:
“Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths.
“The protected can’t begin to understand the price paid so they and their families can sleep safe and free at night.
“No, they are not victims, but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never victims, regardless of how and where they fall. Death, or fear of death, has no power over them. Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make — for you.”
Congress should remember Shakespeare’s words:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
Rube Render is the Curry County Republican chairman. Contact him at: