The Deep State

Since the Trump inauguration, I've been reading references to something called The Deep State.  I had a hunch, but I googled it anyway, and learned the definition.

State within a state is a political situation in a country when an internal organ ("deep state"), such as the armed forces and civilian authorities (intelligence agencies, police, administrative agencies and branches of governmental bureaucracy), does not respond to the civilian political leadership. Although the state within the state can be conspiratorial in nature, the Deep State can also take the form of entrenched unelected career civil servants acting in a non-conspiratorial manner, to further their own interests (e.g. job security, enhanced power and authority, pursuit of ideological goals and objectives, and the general growth of their agency) and in opposition to the policies of elected officials, by obstructing, resisting and subverting the policies and directives of elected officials.

Yeah, that's about what I thought it was.  Career politicians and career bureaucrats who don't agree with the trajectory of the current administration and do what they can do to either delay, obstruct, or change the trajectory into one that more closely suits their personal interests.

I'm sure that a lot of that is going on in Washington right now.  We have for too long had career bureaucrats (not to mention career politicians) forget that they only exist to serve the nation, and in extension, to serve The People, and damn their personal interests.

I once had a colonel.  A full-bull of Military Police who I served.  He had a little needlepoint over his desk, quaintly done, nicely execute that said "Never Let the Bureaucrat Win" That was his motto and Woe unto the junior officer who let a bureaucrat stand between him and his mission.   Oh, the old man was nice enough, charming at parties, and all the ladies loved him, but he would rain scunnion on a bureaucrat in an instant.

Our President needs to learn that lesson.  I see that the bureaucrats got Mike Flynn earlier today, and right or wrong, for what it is worth, they won this round.  That's a damned shame.  We need to make America Great Again, and if the bureaucrats get in the way, the hell with them.