The "adults" in the Trump administration are surprisingly childish

The sad thing about Jim Mattis’s exit is his grandstanding, not to say petulant and immature, mode of departure. The letter announcing his resignation, circulated yesterday, is half bureaucratic boilerplate (‘I have been privileged to serve,’ ‘proud of the progress,’ etc., etc.).

But those nuggets are set in a jelly of snarky recrimination about how he, Jim Mattis, has always believed that our strength as a nation is ‘inextricably linked’ to our system of ‘alliance and partnerships.’ Further, he says we must treat our allies ‘with respect’ while remaining ‘resolute and unambiguous’ about ‘those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours,’ e.g., Russia and China.

You do not need an advance degree in hermeneutics to unpack the implications of such statements. ‘I, Jim Mattis, am the adult in the room. I want to foster our partnerships with our allies — unlike some people — and I want to be tough with respect to opponents like Russia and China’ — again, not stated but clearly implied, unlike some.