There is an old Iraqi joke from the days of Saddam Hussein: A journalist asks Tariq Aziz, his deputy foreign minister, “Can elephants fly?” He answers, “Of course they can’t fly.” The journalist follows up: “But the president just said elephants can fly.” “Oh, yes,” Aziz says without missing a beat, “but only very slowly.”

The point of the joke was to make fun of how competent officials corrupt their credibility to remain in favor with strongman rulers. President Donald Trump is not Saddam, of course — Trump won elections legitimately. His tendency to run roughshod over bureaucratic norms and systems has less to do with autocracy than frustration with a moribund and dysfunctional bureaucracy. Nor would Trump be the first president to be intolerant toward dissent from among his own appointees. There is a happy medium in leadership. Former President George W. Bush’s willingness to allow Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to run amok with rivalry and insubordination undermined his administration.