The president angrily provoked the cancellation of a
summit meeting with the Mexican president, hung up on Australia’s prime
minister, authorized a commando raid that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL
member, repeatedly lied about the existence of millions of fraudulent votes
cast in the
“I’ve never
been so nervous in my lifetime about what may or may not happen in Washington,”
said Leon Panetta, a Democrat who served as chief of staff, secretary of
defense and C.I.A. director during a 50-year career that spanned nine
presidents from both parties. “I don’t know whether this White House is capable
of responding in a thoughtful or careful way should a crisis erupt,” he said in
an interview on Tuesday. “You can do hit-and-miss stuff over a period of time.
But at some point, I don’t give a damn what your particular sense of change is
all about, you cannot afford to have change become chaos.”
photo from NYTs.
