CALL OF DUTY VS BOOTY CALL:

During the Vietnam War, when most of his classmates were avoiding the draft, he volunteered for the Marine Corps and earned numerous decorations leading a rifle platoon in fierce combat. Returning home, he became a prosecutor and eventually ran the Justice Department's criminal division. In the 1990s Mueller went into private practice. It was lucrative, but he hated it. Watching the spike of drug-driven murders in the District of Columbia, he volunteered to become a line prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office. It was as if a retired general had volunteered to serve as a private in wartime.

Later, as FBI director under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Mueller became the embodiment of the old-school G-man who only wore a white shirt with a red or blue tie -- never a blue shirt, because that would signal dangerous frivolity. He "avoided the limelight" and "frustrated his speechwriters by crossing out every 'I' in speeches they wrote for him. It wasn't about him, he told them: 'It's about the organization.' "

Mueller embodies the ideals of probity, service and self-sacrifice that trace back to the Pilgrims who came to America in search of a "city upon a hill." The Puritans preached devotion to the Almighty and had nothing but contempt for vanity and luxury -- no blue shirts for them. Over the centuries, their religious fanaticism leached away, leaving behind in American culture a residue of obligation to serve not just God but also mankind [...]

Trump combines the hedonism of the 1970s with the bigotry and sexism of the 1950s: the worst of both worlds. His consciousness was not raised in the 1960s, but his libido was. He did not take part in the civil rights or antiwar movements and won five draft deferments -- including one for "bone spurs" -- so that he could devote his life to the pursuit of women and wealth. He later said that fear of catching a sexually transmitted disease was "my personal Vietnam."

Trump is the embodiment of what Christopher Lasch in 1979 called the "new narcissist" who "praises respect for rules and regulations in the secret belief that they do not apply to himself"; whose "emancipation from ancient taboos brings him no sexual peace"; and whose "cravings have no limits," because he "demands immediate gratification and lives in a state of restless, perpetually unsatisfied desire." A product of the "me decade," Trump is a "me first"-- not "America first" -- president whose speeches are full of exaggerated or falsified self-praise.

Mueller is the best of America; Trump the worst.

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