I'm sorry, we came how close to a coup / nuclear annihilation?

Well, yesterday escalated quickly.

Bob Woodward and Robert Costa have a new book coming out about the final days of the Trump regime called Peril. CNN posted excerpts from it. And the details are wild.

Two days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, President Donald Trump's top military adviser, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, single-handedly took secret action to limit Trump from potentially ordering a dangerous military strike or launching nuclear weapons, according to "Peril," a new book by legendary journalist Bob Woodward and veteran Washington Post reporter Robert Costa.

Woodward and Costa write that Milley, deeply shaken by the assault, 'was certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election, with Trump now all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.'

Milley worried that Trump could 'go rogue,' the authors write.

"You never know what a president's trigger point is," Milley told his senior staff, according to the book.

So, yes, the nation's top military leader felt so worried about his putative commander-in-chief's erratic behavior that he felt he needed to take measures to make sure that Trump didn't order a nuclear strike or try to initiate a coup.

In response, Milley took extraordinary action, and called a secret meeting in his Pentagon office on January 8 to review the process for military action, including launching nuclear weapons. Speaking to senior military officials in charge of the National Military Command Center, the Pentagon's war room, Milley instructed them not to take orders from anyone unless he was involved. 

"No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I'm part of that procedure," Milley told the officers, according to the book. He then went around the room, looked each officer in the eye, and asked them to verbally confirm they understood.

"Got it?" Milley asked, according to the book.

"Yes, sir."

'Milley considered it an oath,' the authors write.

This is redolent of how, during the maelstrom of Watergate, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger likewise ordered his military to not accede to any doomsday requests from Richard Nixon as his life circled the drain.

Now, many Republicans—along with a few of our side—are calling for Gen. Milley to be fired. Hogwash.

When you join the military, you take an oath to the Constitution, not whomever happens to occupy the White House. That Constitution is greater than the president. It's greater than any of us. And if the president is about to violate his oath to the Constitution, as the chief of the Joint Chiefs your duty is to the document which underpins our society, not to the chain of command. This is no different than what Warrant Officer Hugh J. Thompson Jr. did at the My Lai massacre in Vietnam to save civilians from ravaging US soldiers intent on murder. Or like what Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman did in testifying at Trump's impeachment hearing; Col. Vindman is one of those calling for Gen. Milley's resignation. 

We need men like Gen. Milley, who put fealty to the Constitution above that to whomever the occupant of the White House is. That it came to this is indicative of what a danger Trump was, and still is. And those who want his head, even on our side, are fools. They speak of loyalty to the Constitution; and yet, when someone shows that in extremis, they call for his firing. I, for one, am thankful that Gen. Milley stepped in to maintain order in the ranks, and to remind them of their duty to the nation. For that, we all owe him immeasurable gratitude.