It is our privilege or our curse, depending how you look at it, to be living in a time when tradition and precedent are being tossed out on a daily basis. Thursday saw another significant break with history when, for the first time in almost seventy years, the Senate voted to allow a recently retired military officer—James Mattis, a former four-star general—to serve in the civilian post of Secretary of Defense.
When Donald Trump picked Mattis, a sixty-six-year-old ex-Marine who goes by the nickname Mad Dog, to run the Pentagon, some observers predicted that his nomination could run into opposition from the Senate Armed Services Committee, which oversees the Pentagon and the rules governing it—including one that precludes ex-officers from serving as Secretary of Defense until they have been out of uniform for seven years. But the Committee’s vote to grant a waiver to Mattis, who retired from the service in 2013, was bipartisan and overwhelming: 24–3. (Later in the day, the full Senate confirmed the waiver by a vote of 81–17.)
What happened? Had the members of the Committee, which is led by Arizona’s John McCain, a Republican, succumbed to the nihilistic spirit of the moment, the belief, exemplified by Trump’s campaign, that it is time to cast off antiquated democratic niceties, such as requiring the military to report to civilian leadership? To the contrary. The confirmation hearing that McCain held on Thursday demonstrated that many members of the committee, particularly the Democratic ones, are hoping that Mattis will act as a bulwark against Trump, the authoritarian tendencies he represents, and some of his scarier counsels, particularly Michael Flynn, a former three-star general slated to be Trump’s national-security adviser.
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