Like much of the country, I breathed a sigh of relief last year when President Donald Trump, in perhaps his most consequential personnel shake-up to date, named retired four-star Marine general John Kelly as his chief of staff. I’d been an outspoken critic of the administration, but — while part of me appreciated that the chaos had nearly paralyzed the White House’s ability to advance its destructive agenda — I recognized that a White House in turmoil was good for the United States neither at home nor abroad. What’s more, I had a special attachment to the increasingly distant and quaint memory of a highly functional 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, having served there for nearly three years during the Obama administration.

So, I added my voice to the chorus of praise for Kelly. On Twitter, I called him a man of “honor and decency.” I echoed that sentiment on TV, adding that I welcomed the order I expected he’d instill in Trump’s freewheeling policy process, especially within the national security realm. I soon came to realize I was wrong on both fronts. Nothing highlights this better than Kelly’s initial defense of Rob Porter, the outgoing White House staff secretary accused of spousal abuse. Kelly’s statement had the veneer of dignity — condemning domestic abuse — but, at its core, it still defended and even endorsed the man accused of these vile acts.

Kelly, a man of honor & decency, should stop this inane cruelty. He saw up-close just how—& how much—Obama cared for the fallen’s families. https://t.co/5NPTKHsd1Z — Ned Price (@nedprice) October 17, 2017

Unlike other commentators, however, I should’ve known better. I had the opportunity to interact with Kelly during my time at the White House, and I never found him to fit the mold of a team-oriented policy wrangler. What I’ve since come to realize, however, is that the initial collective embrace of Kelly was about something bigger than any one man — or any other senior administration official for that matter. At its core, this was about our need for a hero, however flawed, in an administration that had brought to the surface far too many villains.

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To be clear, Kelly, a nearly lifelong Marine, served his country bravely over the course of decades, and he and his family have endured the unique horror of losing a child in battle. We owe him and his family gratitude for his military record and the sense of service he passed on to his family.

But I observed Kelly when he was head of the U.S. Military’s Southern Command, a role that required him to have one foot in the policy arena (where he now squarely resides), in addition to his military duties. Here’s what I knew about Kelly before I willfully forgot it: He’s a flamethrower who comes to the job with preconceived notions that rarely fit the reality. He was the military official who, at the height of the Ebola crisis in 2014, engaged in scare-mongering rhetoric about illegal immigrants potentially infecting Americans with the virus. He recounted during a press briefing of hearing of “five or six black guys” from Liberia, the epicenter of the outbreak, who were making their way to New York City by way of the Mexican border.