The fact was, I needed mechanisms in place—circuit breakers—should the White House try to circumvent me to do something inappropriate. There seemed to be too much of this happening as of late, and I wanted to be ready for anything. I was the sole civilian in the chain of command between the president and the uniformed military, after all, and had a critical role to perform. Moreover, the whole point of my game plan—the reason that I had taken so much crap over the last several months—was to be in this position, at this moment, to act. The essence of American democracy was free and fair
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