There have been so many disgraceful things about the Trump regime that sometimes it’s hard to pick incidents that will be remembered in ten years let alone one. The USS Theodore Roosevelt/Captain Crozier/Acting Secretary Modley episode will be remembered, especially in the Navy.

Brett Crozier, of course, was the Captain who was so frustrated with the lack of response from his superiors that he leaked a letter expressing his worries about the health and safety of his crew. He expected to be relieved of his command but he did not expect to be publicly insulted by Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly:

Now, in the most recent development, a recording of Modly addressing the 4,000 sailors of the Roosevelt has been obtained by Task & Purpose, and it deepens the Navy’s crisis even further. Crozier’s sin, according to Modly, was that he should have known his letter would leak to the press. If he didn’t know this, given the “information age that we live in,” Modly told the crew, “then he was either (a) too naïve or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this. The alternative is that he did this on purpose,” and that would be a “betrayal of trust, with me, with his chain of command.”

Gasps are audible on the recording, and one sailor is heard yelling, “What the fuck?” A widely circulated video, shot a few days earlier, showed Crozier disembarking from the ship to the applause and chants of hundreds of his sailors. It is a surefire act of alienation for an acting secretary of the Navy to suggest that the captain—who probably knew he was falling on his sword when he took action to save his men—was naïve or stupid. It’s even worse to suggest that he committed a “betrayal of trust,” when—as every officer knows—betraying the Navy is grounds for court martial.

That’s right, Modly disgraced his office by going full-mini Trump on the aghast crew who, quite rightly, see Captain Crozier as a hero. Additionally, Modly didn’t have the guts to show his face and harangued the crew via the intercom system. This is classic Trumper cowardice. To paraphrase the carrier’s namesake, Trumpers speak loudly and carry small sticks.

The widespread condemnation made Modly plotz. He submitted an actual resignation for his acting post. The Impeached Insult Comedian’s response was typical:

“The captain should not have written a letter, he didn’t have to be Ernest Hemingway. He made a mistake but he had a bad day,” Trump said.

He added on Modly’s resignation: “I had heard he did because he didn’t want to cause any disturbance for our country…  because he wouldn’t have had to resign, I would not have asked him. I don’t know him. I didn’t speak to him, but he did that I think just to end that problem. And I think in really many ways that was a very unselfish thing for him to do.”

It takes a lot of nerve for Trump to use the word unselfish. I’m astonished that it’s even in his tiny vocabulary. The fucker has never done an unselfish thing in his stupid, selfish life.

I’m firmly convinced that Modly was forced out by Defense Secretary Esper because only Trump can be Trump. He’s the one who does the insulting in his administration, not an underling like Modly: Me, not Mini-Me. That’s why I call him the Impeached Insult Comedian.

I usually reserve Separated At Birth for Saturdays but this was too good to wait. The last word goes to Thomas Modly and Eraserhead: