Of Love and Hate

In the Forest of Ephraim, Gustave Doré¹

McMaster's first order of business as National Security Adviser was to protect and enable “Obama embeds" by concealing their identities, and maintaining their security clearances. Then, McMaster actively undermined virtually every salient issue of the President's agenda. Next, McMaster secured his base by influencing the selection of his old buddy General Kelly to be White House chief of staff. Then came his purge of Whitehouse advocacy. Now McMaster is completing the mop-up operation with the firing of at least three more senior NSC officials loyal to the President.



In summation, McMaster is attempting to influence the outcome of a presidency, and appears to be succeeding! Emboldened by a president who "evidently" loves those who hate him and hates those who love him!²

Brings to remembrance a three millennia old palace intrigue of a king who loved the one who hated him, but conveyed little regard for those who loved and honored him. "In all Israel there was none to be so much praised as his son Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him" (2 Samuel 14:25). He cut and weighed his hair once a year (two hundred shekels).

Absalom would kill his own brother if he had the chance, and did. The arrogant and manipulative son got the attention and compliance of Joab the king's chief military commander after ordering his servants to set the commander's barley field on fire. After this, it came to pass that the politically astute son of the King prepared for himself chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him, and launched a conspiracy to usurp his father's throne. 

When the king eventually retreated in exile, the king's mighty men who greatly loved and honored him gathered unto him in the wilderness, as did others of like mind. It came to pass when the reprobate Absalom initiated the final onslaught to annihilate his father, his rebellion die in the entanglement of the crown of his pride in the boughs of a great oak!

"And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Samuel 18:33). The king's thoughts were not of those who saved his life or of the lives of his wives and children, or of his kingdom or of the twenty thousand men who fell that day, but of his reprobate son!"

" And it was told Joab, Behold, the king weepeth and mourneth for Absalom. And the victory that day was turned into mourning unto all the people: for the people heard say that day how the king was grieved for his son. And the people gat them by stealth that day into the city, as people being ashamed steal away when they flee in battle. But the king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son! And Joab came into the house to the king, and said, Thou hast shamed this day the faces of all thy servants, which this day have saved thy life, and the lives of thy sons and of thy daughters, and the lives of thy wives, and the lives of thy concubines; In that thou lovest thine enemies, and hatest thy friends. For thou hast declared this day, that thou regardest neither princes nor servants: for this day I perceive, that if Absalom had lived, and all we had died this day, then it had pleased thee well. Now therefore arise, go forth, and speak comfortably unto thy servants: for I swear by the LORD, if thou go not forth, there will not tarry one with thee this night: and that will be worse unto thee than all the evil that befell thee from thy youth until now" (2 Samuel 19:1-7).

¹https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A080.The_Death_of_Absalom.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/080.The_Death_of_Absalom.jpg Gustave Doré [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

²"I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour" (1 Ti 2:1-3).