Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 19 February 2026
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column, Founded 1932
Captain Kelly, Astronaut Kelly, President Kelly
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
WASHINGTON – Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., is ready for a run to the top thanks to the Trump administration. A Grand Jury unanimously agreed that the Department of Justice had no case against Kelly and five other Democrats for speaking out and reminding service members they have an obligation under the Uniform Code of Military Justice to disobey illegal orders, a concept derived from the 1945-46 Nuremberg Trials when German officers claimed they were just following orders.
President Trump, who avoided military service during the Vietnam War, called these actions “seditious” and said they warranted the death penalty. Secretary of Defense (now War) Pete Hegseth singled out Kelly and threatened to strip the retired Navy captain of his pension and demote him. Kelly responded with a lawsuit against the administration for violating his First Amendment rights to free speech.
A federal judge agreed that Kelly’s rights had been “trampled” on and put a stop to Hegseth’s retribution. The judge quoted Bob Dylan in his ruling, writing, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows….”
Kelly is the ultimate anti-Trump. A combat veteran and an astronaut who has given his life to public service, to be accused by Hegseth of betraying his country is insulting. Put the two men side by side and ask, who is the real serviceman here? The Navy captain who flew 200 combat missions and had the right stuff as an astronaut versus the former Fox News weekend host who just fired another flag officer for not toeing the party line?
Kelly is the adult in the room, and he did not shrink from the fight. To the contrary, he welcomed the contrast.
“In 1991, when Donald Trump was driving the Taj Mahal Casino into bankruptcy, I was getting shot at over Iraq and Kuwait. In 2001, after Donald Trump said that the collapse of the Twin Towers meant he now owned the tallest skyscraper in Manhattan, I was carrying flags honoring 9/11 victims into space on a rocket ship,” Kelly said in a press conference on Capitol Hill. “In 2003, when Donald Trump was writing birthday greetings to the monster Jeffrey Epstein, I was the first on the scene to recover the bodies of my fellow astronauts who died when Space Shuttle Columbia exploded. In 2011, when Trump was hosting a reality show and pushing conspiracies against President Barack Obama, I was sitting next to my wife’s hospital bed as she recovered from a gunshot to the head.”
In 2024, Kelly was on the short-list for vice president but did not get the nod in large part because the Harris team envisioned a “politics of joy” to lift the spirits of Democrats who had soured on President Biden as too old and out of touch.
Kelly’s gravitas, serious demeanor, and no-nonsense approach to politics did not seem to fit the bill. Not so now. This time around, Democrats are looking for a fighter, someone who has demonstrated the courage to stand up to Trump’s bullying and stand up for a nation longing to regain its respected place in a troubled world.
Kelly’s wife, Gabby Giffords, was a member of Congress from Arizona when she was meeting with constituents outside a supermarket in a Tucson mall in 2011, when she was shot in the head by a troubled young man. He killed six people in minutes that day. Gravely injured, Giffords took many months to recover speech and mobility. She resigned from Congress in 2012 and founded Giffords, a gun violence prevention and safety group.
Kelly and Giffords, a truly courageous and formidable team of strength and resilience, evoke an image of the American ideal, encouraging children to once again proudly dream of becoming citizens and leaders who place country ahead of self, re-instilling respect and confidence in disillusioned allies, and offering a beacon of hope and help to the suffering multitudes throughout the world.
 
See Eleanor Clift’s book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
© 2026 U.S. News Syndicate, Inc
Distributed by U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND