A Nepotistic Kook for National Security Advisor

Nicholas Kristof, writing for the NYT:

The announcement that Trump has recruited Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser is particularly alarming. Flynn is smart and knows the world very well, but he was fired from his last government job for incompetence. Worse, he today is regarded by many Republican and Democratic foreign policy specialists as a kook. […]

Indeed, for an intelligence officer, Flynn seems to have trouble distinguishing truth from falsehood. Earlier this month, he tweeted an obviously fake story claiming that the police had found emails linking Hillary Clinton to sex crimes with children. When he was in government, subordinates had a special name for his delusions: “Flynn facts.” […]

For his chief of staff, Flynn chose his son, who is a looney on social media, calling President Obama a communist and fascist, tweeting racially insensitive comments and sharing absurd conspiracy theories.

Follow the link to those tweets. This is Jack D. “sap and impurify my precious bodily fluids” Ripper stuff. No national security advisor should be hiring one of his own children as chief of staff, let alone one who by all appearances lost his mind five years ago.

★ Tuesday, 22 November 2016