Equivalency?

A friend of mine posted this meme on Facebook. He is retired military and fairly conservative. On cue, someone replied to my friend's post with words to the effect of: "but, Obama fired Mattis!" I suppose that's meant to establish equivalency and absolve Trump of the behavior Mattis found "felony stupid."

Anyway, it got me thinking and I decided to pull the thread a little. General Mattis and President Obama fell out over the Iran nuclear deal in 2013. When that sort of thing happens, the general (or senior government official) does one of two things; they shut up and march, or they quit on principle. Mattis did the latter.

What did Obama do? He accepted Mattis's retirement request, praised his service, and ensured Mattis had time to arrange turnover to his replacement and retire in a dignified manner. Since then, Obama has never uttered a bad word about Mattis. 

As Secretary of Defense, Mattis's relationship with Trump grew increasingly vitriolic. The last straw was Trump abandoning our Kurdish allies in Syria, at which point Mattis offered his resignation. Because Trump refused to see Mattis (and had refused to meet with him for some time), Mattis published his letter openly, so Trump couldn't ignore it. 

What did Trump do? He peremptorily fired Mattis and has continued to bad-mouth him since. Mattis was also allowed no time to arrange turnover to his replacement as SECDEF, which adversely impacted operations of the Defense Department. 

So, if you choose to ponder this tale of a General and two presidents, consider what "equivalency" it reveals.