Robert Hill is a Pittsburgh-based communications consultant (hillr012@gmail.com).

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From the cesspool that the White House has become, Chief of Staff Robert Kelly may have emerged last month as the saddest man in government. Apart from President Donald Trump himself, Mr. Kelly may be the most shameless as well.

When he stood at the White House podium in a fruitless effort to purify the water Mr. Trump had putrefied in his squabble with Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson regarding Mr. Trump’s bungled outreach to the Gold Star widow of Sgt. La David Johnson — a Special Forces soldier killed in Niger — Mr. Kelly spoke to an audience of one: Donald J. Trump. His challenge was to lie as completely and disrespectfully as his boss, which he accomplished. That likely did not occasion his maudlin state, though.

White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders carries out her prevaricating duties daily at news briefings. And other White House officials also lie when called upon.

Mr. Kelly’s case differed in several respects. In the Trump/​Wilson word war, the congresswoman reported that Mr. Trump diminished her dead constituent’s sacrifice by insensitively saying to Mrs. Johnson that “[Sgt. Johnson] knew what he signed up for.” Mr. Trump tweeted that Ms. Wilson fabricated his message attributed to him and that he could prove it, with Ms. Huckabee Sanders reporting that Mr. Kelly was with the president during the call. As matters heated up, the Johnson/​Wilson camp united in their description of Mr. Trump’s ineptitude during the disputed phone call. Enter Mr. Kelly.

Whether the former general and and Gold Star father authored the account he gave of his own experience of losing a son in Afghanistan, whether he himself chose to refer to a black woman member of Congress as an “empty barrel,” and whether his falsely accusing the congresswoman of ardent self-praise when she spoke at the dedication of an FBI building in 2015 was his own idea is not clear.

Notwithstanding, it would not be surprising to learn that the commander in chief was the one who decided to use Mr. Kelly’s fallen son for political points, to make up the bogus 2015 scenario and to coin the “empty barrel” description of Ms. Wilson.

Mr. Kelly must be in pain after publicly reliving his family’s loss in order to prop up the prevarications of a president whose own military experience never advanced beyond playing dress-up at a high school academy. The chief of staff must mourn the loss of his reputation as the adult in the White House in the wake of his lying about Ms. Wilson in a statement he knew could easily be proven false.

The Sun Sentinel newspaper did just that. Its footage of the FBI building dedication in 2015 showed Ms. Wilson, a Florida Democrat, selflessly praising both GOP leaders and FBI heroes as if they were family.

Over the centuries, white America was built on the self-serving proposition that black Americans should advance white interests because of a conjured-for-the-purpose black intelligence deficit. Slavery, official segregation, de facto segregation and invidious discrimination were thereby undergirded, with the discrimination continuing to this day.

Mr. Kelly’s demeaning of the black congresswoman played not only to the president but also to the racist part of his base of supporters. This base embraces the age-old narrative that black Americans serve as village idiots — empty barrels — and deserve existence only at the sufferance of their white rulers.

As an observer wiser than I has noted, much of white America has committed itself to diminishing African-Americans, then criticizing them for their diminished condition.

Far from an “empty barrel,” Frederica Wilson served as a Florida state representative and senator before being elected to Congress. She was a school principal who mentored hundreds of black young people in segregated schools to become the best that anyone could become. She founded the 5000 Role Models of Excellence mentorship program. It is reported that she knew La David Johnson through her mentorship program, in which he participated as a boy. The program prepared him for the rigors of the military where he excelled before giving his life for his divided country.

African-American achievers and strivers and whites of good will know that black truth-telling leaders are the opposite of “empty barrels.” Ms. Wilson is the type of smart, courageous, hard-working and perspicacious black woman I have known all of my life — the kind that gave birth to me, taught me , mentored me, married me and uplifted me.

Although John Kelly the liar mourns the sacrifice of privacy and honor he lost at the podium that sad day, and lost again by doubling down on his dishonor days later during a Fox News interview, the now-chief of gaffe displays no shame at debasing himself by demeaning Frederica Wilson and her distinguished service. He should.

First Published: November 21, 2017, 5:00 a.m.