Anthony Scaramucci was hit by the door on the way out

Well, we hardly got to know the Mooch. Because the first act of the president’s new chief of staff retired general John Kelly, was to fire him.

By all accounts, it was done gently, but decisively. And so after only 10 days, Anthony Scaramucci is out as Director of Communications, shortest tenure of anyone in that job, so short that my computer didn’t even have enough time to add his name to the spell-check.

And it led us to speculate that the generals’ second move would be to confiscate the president’s phone. There was a delay in the morning tweets, but they did go out eventually — predicting the Dow would hit 22,000, and saying only the Fake News Media and Trump enemies want the president to stop using social media.

But phone or not, Alex Conant, who is a Republican political strategist, says bringing Kelly to the White House could mark a major turning point for the Trump administration.

“We could see this being the beginning of a very successful administration. He still has three-and-a-half years in office before the next election. He still has the opportunity to do a lot of big things starting with tax reform this fall. But it’s going to take a lot of discipline from the administration than we’ve seen. Hopefully Gen. Kelly is the guy to do it.”

It’s hard to overstate the magnitude of the change, he says.

“President Trump has never had Gen. Kelly in his orbit as far as I can tell … [he’s] never going to suck up to the president. He’s never going to tell the president what he wants to hear.”

You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief.

“Every Republican official in Washington is relieved.”

The organizational lines are now clear. Clear enough that Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders could actually give a clear answer when the question came up at the daily briefing.

“Gen. Kelly has the full authority to operate in the White House and all staff will report to him.”

CBSN Political Director Steve Chaggaris says Kelly isn’t going to hesitate to fire people.

“Kelly has come in and shown that if you’re not on board or in the mold of what John Kelly is looking for in an employee of the White House, then you’re going to be shown the door.”

Not only was Scaramucci shown the door, but it hit him on the way out.

“On the same day of Scaramucci’s firing, someone noticed he was also listed as dead in his alma mater’s directory…” CBS News Correspondent Matt Pieper explained.

A spokesperson apologized for the error.

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