Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, an Obama appointee, decided to make policy by herself by ordering Justice Department lawyers not to defend President Donald Trump’s executive order concerning refugees in court, despite the fact that it was entirely legal. (Whether it was wise is something that can be debated.) In any case, she violated her oath of office and the United States Constitution for an act of political grandstanding. The president, left with no other choice, has a simple two-word message for her.
“You’re fired!”
To see the commentary on social media one would think that President Trump had committed a new version of President Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre when he caused both his attorney general and his deputy to resign for refusing to terminate the Watergate special prosecutor.
The comparison is wide of the mark. The real comparison is with President Harry Truman’s firing of General Douglas MacArthur for thinking he could ignore the civilian commander in chief over strategy in the Korean War. The general was very popular with the American people and May or may not have been right on military strategy, But Truman had no choice in the face of his defiance, just as Trump has no choice but to fire Yates.
One has to hand it to Trump; he is nothing if not decisive. He is also quickly fixing a couple of kinks in his executive order, allowing people with green cards to reenter the United States and providing waivers for refugees on a case by case basis who had already had approved visas but had been barred originally under the order.
The net result has been that a few hundred people were unnecessarily inconvenienced and the president’s numerous enemies went stark raving mad for trivial reasons.
Polling, by the way, suggests that anywhere from a plurality to an actual majority of Americans agree with Trump over the temporary ban on immigrants from seven select countries.
The professional protestors clogging airports, the battalions of ACLU lawyers, and the politicians crying crocodile tears may want to think about that fact going forward. It looks like Trump has won again.
