Michael Gerson comments in WaPo on the relevation from former U. N. Ambassador and GOP star Nikki Haley that senior White House officials Tillerson and Kelly came to her with the notion of joining them in restraining and subverting Trump’s worst impulses:
… Haley is confusing two categories. If a Cabinet member has a policy objection of sufficient seriousness, he or she should take that concern to the president. If the president then chooses against their position — and if implementing the decision would amount to a violation of conscience — an official should resign. Staying in office to undermine, say, a law or war you disapprove of would be a disturbing arrogation of presidential authority.
But there is an equally important moral priority to consider: If you are a national security official working for a malignant, infantile, impulsive, authoritarian wannabe, you need to stay in your job as long as you can to mitigate whatever damage you can — before the mad king tires of your sanity and fires you.
This paradox is one tragic outcome of Trumpism. It is generally a bad and dangerous idea for appointed officials to put their judgment above an elected official’s. And yet it would have been irresponsible for Mattis, Kelly, Tillerson and others not to follow their own judgments in cases where an incompetent, delusional or corrupt president was threatening the national interest.
But it’s not a paradox. All these people swear an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution. That is the paramount applicable behavioral standard. The fact that the President has been elected, via the Electoral College, by the people[1], is of secondary importance.
The fact of the matter is that once it became clear that Trump is inadequate to the position of the Presidency, whether it be due to general incompetence, mental illness, or malicious intent, these appointed officials should have gone to the Cabinet and asked for a 25th Amendment proceeding. Succeed or fail, that’s where they should have gone, and the obvious concern that the Cabinet members may have made the intellectual mistake of supposing their Party loyalty and gratitude supersedes their oaths to the Constitution is irrelevant; indeed, if news of the proceeding were to leak to the media, and the names of the nay-sayers with it, then at least we’d know who in the Cabinet was unworthy of the public, or even private trust. That would be a public service in and of itself.
But in the end, the perception that there’s a paradox is an illusion. If Haley truly believed Trump is doing a good job, then it’s acceptable that she turned down Kelly and Tillerson. If Kelly and Tillerson refused to pursue the 25th Amendment option at her urging, then it’s a less palatable, but still acceptable reason not to join them in their efforts.
But if she, like Gerson, finds herself in uncomfortable awe of the President, then I must say that she misapprehends her position, her oath, and the position of the Presidency. The President is the Executive, an implementor of law, head of defense, and top diplomat, but the President doesn’t make law. That capability, supreme among powers, is Congress, and is only moderated by the President when Congress is sufficiently fractured that it cannot override a veto.
That doesn’t make the President an angel not to be dealt with, Stephen Miller’s quaint little diatribe notwithstanding.
And Haley becomes, if only in my eyes, another fatally flawed Republican. Where have all the good ones gone?[2]
2 Yes, yes, that was purely rhetorical. Most of them quit the party when they realized it was in sepsis and unrecoverable.
