THE BEST LEMONADE IS TRUMP LEMONADE

In a snarky tweet Sunday (2/19), Bill Kristol asked of conservatives who are “rationalizing” Donald Trump’s presidency: “In your heart, don’t you know you’re wrong?”

“Actually, Bill, some of us think there is more to the man than his outlandish comments, e.g. his cabinet, his regulatory moves, legislative agenda,” responded Brit Hume, the best news anchor in my lifetime.

Amen, Brit.  I’ve been blown away by what he’s done since winning the election.

Trump has accomplished more in the first month of his presidency than any president since Ronald Reagan. John Hawkins lists here his most significant achievements. They are all the more impressive because of the unprecedented obstruction he’s had to overcome.

Byron York writes here about another Trump triumph. NATO has agreed to spend more for defense, do more to fight Islamist terror. The Donald’s negotiating tactics are unorthodox (for a politician), but they produce results.

Trump’s latest McMaster stroke came Monday (2/20), when he chose Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster to be his National Security Adviser.

If there could be an Army equivalent of “Mad Dog” Mattis, it would be McMaster. He’s an even studlier stud than retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward, who turned down the job last week.

Harward turned the job down because Mr. Trump balked at letting him choose his own subordinates, and because White House counselor Steve Bannon’s “shadow NSC” clouds the chain of command.

McMaster will have the right to choose his own staff, proof The Donald can learn from his mistakes, grow in office. I love lemonade. There’s no better lemonade than Trump lemonade.

I’ve been a huge McMaster fan ever since I read his 1991 book, Dereliction of Duty, about the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam War.

“McMaster may be the smartest man I have ever met,” wrote an officer who served under him to Instapundit. “I went to an ‘elite’ northeast academy and an Ivy – and nobody I know can hold a candle to his ability to learn every side and nuance of almost every conflict around the globe.”

That’s a taste of the intellectual part.  As for the warrior part, then Capt. McMaster was the hero of the Battle of 73 Easting during the first Gulf War, where his Eagle Troop of the 2^nd Armored Cavalry Regiment destroyed an elite Iraqi tank brigade nine times its size in what was the last major tank battle of the 20^th century.

Enjoy this thrilling depiction, narrated in part by McMaster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX1cvcHjKu4%20

Warrior and intellectual were combined at Tal Afar in 2006, when then Col. McMaster of the 3^rd Armored Cavalry Regiment pioneered the tactics used in the troop surge, for which Gen. David Petraeus has received undue credit.

For America, the best thing about the McMaster appointment is no one — save Mattis — is more qualified to navigate the dangerous international shoals created by President Obama’s feckless foreign policy and defense cuts.

For President Trump, the best thing is the McMaster appointment makes him bombproof on the one “scandal” which, if proven, could have brought down his presidency.

During the campaign, Mr. Trump says worrisome things about Vladimir Putin and Russia.  His bromance with Putin worried me in the extreme.

Yet since becoming president, The Donald has done nothing to confirm that worry.  In their frenzied efforts to oust him, few in the “mainstream” media have mentioned this.  The appointment of McMaster makes the charge Trump is a Kremlin stooge a hard sell.

“I have never felt better about Trump administration regarding national security,” says Rep. Mike McFaul, R-Tex.

Here’s what some prominent Trump critics say about McMaster:

“This is a perfect pick,” says John Noonan, a national security adviser to President G.W. Bush.

“The Neil Gorsuch of generals,” says David French of National Review, an Iraq War vet.

“He is the best man for the job and credit should go to President Trump for making this inspired choice,” says CNN National Security analyst Peter Bergen.

“I can’t imagine anyone better prepared for the challenges of being Trump’s NSA than H.R. McMaster,” even Bill Kristol had to admit.

“LtGen. H.R. McMaster is an outstanding choice for natl’ security adviser – a man of genuine intellect, character and ability,” says Sen. John McCain.

Flummoxed lefties such as CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr are reduced to claiming, falsely, that because he’s a serving officer, McMaster couldn’t turn down Trump’s offer.

If you’re disappointed Mr. Trump didn’t pick John Bolton, it looks as if he’s going to get a job in the administration too.

With Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, John Kelly at Homeland Security, Mike Pompeo at CIA, McMaster, and maybe Bolton, President Trump has a better national security team than G.W. Bush, his dad, or Reagan.

Sundance at Conservative Treehouse thinks Tillerson (who has quietly cleaned out the 7^th floor at Foggy Bottom of deep staters) will be the best of them all.

“Everything T-Rex has done so far is absolutely pitch perfect,” Sundance says.  “This guy is buckets of pure American awesome. Deliberate, focused, steadfast and intensely well-grounded, Tillerson is a walking example of just the right person at just the right time.”

The Donald’s job approval ratings would be higher if he were more careful about what he says and tweets. But in the end, voters in Flyover Country will judge him more by what he does.

The smartest thing President Trump could do is follow the lead of his excellent team on national security, focus on domestic policy and confronting the Lying Swine.  If that’s what he does, soon there’ll be so much winning, we may actually get sick of it.

Well, actually, no we won’t.  Doesn’t that Trump lemonade taste oh so good?

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret, and was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force during the Reagan Administration.  Until his retirement last month, he was the national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.