In her news conference with her Senate counterpart Thursday, minority leader Nancy Pelosi was asked for her reaction to Gen. James Mattis’s resignation.
“I’m shaken by the news because of the patriot that General — er, Secretary — Mattis is.” she told the gaggle, adding:
I am shaken by the resignation of General Mattis for what it means to our country, for the message it sends to our troops, and for the indication of what his view is of the commander-in-chief.
Her comments begin at 11:04 in the video that follows:
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Earlier in her remarks, Pelosi observed, “Our troops look to Secretary Mattis as a leader. And now he is going to be leaving them.”
Her admiration for the general as a symbol and leader is such that one can only imagine how horrified she must have been in January 2013 when then-Pres. Barack Obama relieved Mattis of his post as head of Central Command without so much as a phone call to let him know he was being replaced.
According to Thomas E. Ricks of Foreign Policy:
I am told that General Mattis was traveling and in a meeting when an aide passed him a note telling him that the Pentagon had announced his replacement as head of Central Command. It was news to him — he hadn’t received a phone call or a heads-up from anyone at the Pentagon or the White House.
The reason for the firing, Ricks writes elsewhere, was his and the president’s differing views on Iran. The whole business sounds remarkably similar to the situation now.
So what was Pelosi’s reaction to back then? Remarkably, a search for the key terms Pelosi’s reaction to Obama’s firing of Mattis for the date range Jan. 4, 2013 to Feb. 20, 2013 turns up nothing.
Makes you wonder.
