OH, this is going to be good!

I have to say, right off the top, I do believe this was a deliberate effort by Time Magazine to poke President Trump with a sharp stick.

The latest member of the Trump team to grace the cover of Time is none other than the newly installed chief of staff, John Kelly.

The title of the cover piece is: Trump’s Last Best Hope.

That’s a lot put on the shoulders of the retired Marine general, and under normal circumstances, with a normal administration, there’d be no reason to doubt his ability to whip the West Wing into a lean, mean operation.

After being pulled from his position as secretary of Homeland Security to fill the slot left vacant after Reince Priebus was shuttled out, Kelly went to work.

Almost immediately, Kelly began making changes, according to Time. He fired former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, and closed the door to the Oval Office.

The retired general also instilled a new hierarchy at the White House: “Country, president, self,” he told staff at a meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building after taking over as chief of staff.

According to the Time piece, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunsford all had a hand in pushing Kelly to take the position.

Kelly was apparently reticent to accept the position, until Trump asked him for the third time.

Who can blame him?

The chief of staff has a heavy burden, under the best conditions, but with the Trump White House, Kelly will have to crack down on the competing factions within an administration that has been chaos from the beginning.

Increasingly, it has become clear from reports that there is a power struggle surrounding the president. The “palace intrigue” is real, and it is of his own making. He enjoys seeing underlings fight to be the one at his side.

Kelly will have to overcome that. Cutting loose a blatant opportunist like Scaramucci and limiting access to the Oval Office was a great start, frankly.

However, there have been reports that Kelly sought to control Trump’s Twitter habits, and that apparently infuriated the president.

That is one of the more destructive elements of the Trump White House, yet, lawyers and advisers have been utterly impotent in controlling his social media outbursts.

There have also been reports of Trump’s displeasure with national security adviser H.R. McMaster, stemming from McMaster’s efforts to control the foreign policy message that gets out when Trump goes off script.

McMaster and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis are said to have tried to assure that one of them was always with Trump when he speaks with foreign leaders, in order to keep the president on message and avoid any diplomatic misunderstandings.

Another element to consider is Trump’s pathological need to be the “star” of the White House, at all times.

Early on, chief strategist Steve Bannon got his own Time cover, and reports are that this annoyed Trump greatly.

How will a Kelly cover, touting him as Trump’s best hope to shape up his administration go over?

Watch Twitter over the next week or two. If President Trump starts chaffing over the bridle Kelly attempts to put on him, it will become apparent, very quickly.