Thomas Modly Isn't Just an Arrogant Apparatchik. He's Tasteless, Too.
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Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly told the crew that their former commander, Capt. Brett Crozier was either "too naive or too stupid" to be in command or that he intentionally leaked to the media a memo in which he warned about coronavirus spreading aboard the aircraft carrier and urged action to save his sailors.
The acting secretary accused Crozier of committing a "betrayal" and creating a "big controversy" in Washington by disseminating the warning so widely.
"It was a betrayal. And I can tell you one other thing: because he did that he put it in the public's forum and it is now a big controversy in Washington, DC," Modly said, according to a transcript of remarks Modly made to the crew, copies of which have been provided to CNN by multiple Navy officials.
In case you missed the latest news from this monumental administration* cock-up, the virus is running amuck aboard the Theodore Roosevelt—CNN reported that 177 members of the crew have tested positive, representing 10 per cent of all military positive—and Captain Crozier himself has tested positive for it. So not only is Modly an arrogant apparatchik, he’s an incredibly tasteless arrogant apparatchik. Here he is, telling Washington Post columnist David Ignatius how he came to the decision to relieve Crozier.
“I didn’t want to get into a decision where the president would feel that he had to intervene because the Navy couldn’t be decisive,” Modly told me in a telephone call from Hawaii at about 1 a.m. Sunday, Washington time. He continued: “If I were president, and I saw a commanding officer of a ship exercising such poor judgment, I would be asking why the leadership of the Navy wasn’t taking action itself.”