McRaven’s column is notable because he is a bona fide war hero—the man who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden—and has not served in a politically appointed position.

Cohen: Pulling security clearances is just the start

Yet Gates and Petraeus are likely more important. Gates was the CIA director under George H. W. Bush, then defense secretary under George W. Bush. He then stayed on into the Obama administration. Gates is the consummate Republican public servant: a widely respected leader with a reputation for sobriety and truth telling, but also strong identification with the GOP. He endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, calling Trump “unqualified and unfit to be commander in chief.” But he has not joined figures like Brennan, Hayden, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in their persistent criticism of the president. (Gates also helped urge Trump to choose former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, an experiment that ended poorly.)

Petraeus was also a war hero, leading U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming the CIA director. He was eventually forced to step down for sharing classified information with a woman with whom he was having an affair, but he’s retained a sheen of respect and credibility in national-security circles. He has gone out of his way to avoid criticizing the president, and was considered as secretary of state at the outset of the Trump administration.

For Gates and Petraeus to move off the sidelines—and in Petraeus’s case, to likely slam shut the door to an administration job that he has diligently kept open for so long—shows how Trump’s attack on Brennan could backfire. (Petraeus might say it’s an example of how insurgencies grow.) Perhaps Trump thought that by starting his clearance purge with Brennan, he might avoid too much flak: Brennan has plenty of detractors, on both the left and the right. Instead, Brennan’s former colleagues have closed ranks, while even some of his critics have taken issue with Trump’s move.

As usual, the question with any Trump-related headline is: Does it matter? For one thing, nothing seems to significantly shift the political needle. Beyond that, Trump has gone after war heroes, most notably Senator John McCain, in the past and survived. McRaven, Gates, and Petraeus aren’t household names outside of Washington. Besides, the trouble with a reputation for being above the fray is that you only have one or two chances to intervene in messy political fights before you lose the reputation. (Part of Trump’s political genius has been his ability to make everyone else fight like him—dirty—thus tarnishing them as well.) Michael Morell, a former deputy director of the CIA, has lamented the way critics within the intelligence community have eroded its reputation for independence and made it a political player; nonetheless, Morell signed Thursday’s letter in support of Brennan.