There were a myriad of grave concerns the morning after Donald Trump was elected. His campaign had been a travesty, defined by bigotry and ingnorance. The candidate refused to release basic tax information, and was immersed in personal scandals, including then unsubstantiated rumors of payoffs to past lovers, as well as fully vetted accounts by multiple women of sexual harassment. The candidate would not cooperate in removing himself from his countless and complex business connections. Moreover, there was already evidence of disturbing outreach by the winner’s campaign team and Russian government officials. And, of course, his unhinged behavior on the stump was unlike anything ever witnessed in American Presidential politics.
But nothing topped the simple fact that for the first time American voters had elected a man, who not only didn’t expect to win, but never wanted to win. Neither the President-elect or his campaign had initiated any preparation for governing. Zero! No transition team. No policy white papers. No lists of possible cabinet appointments. No decision-making flow charts, or any sort of proactive anticipation of White House organization. Nothing!
As the first Tuesday of November arrived, the entire Trump campaign leadership was plotting their next career move after an electoral defeat every last one of them would have bet their 401K on, were anyone dumb enough to offer up such a wager. Forget two months, this group would need two years to get their act together.
In any other administration, Mike Pompeo’s appointment as CIA Director would have been a stunning head scratcher, sure to face a rough confirmation ride. But amidst the incredible group of neophytes, incompetents, and out and out overt enemies of the missions defining the very agencies they were picked to lead, Pompeo did not stand out as particularly grievous. Still, Democrats had no problem reciting from a long list of nutty positions and quotes Pompeo put forth as a Fox/AM prototype.
The 3-term Kansas Congressman, a Koch/Tea Party creation, was most well known for particularly shrill and inane questioning of Hillary Clinton as part of the Benghazi inquisition. And his public statements were littered with tid bits typical of so many Fox/AM regurgitaters the 2010 wave washed into DC.
From his campaign twitter account calling a Democratic Indian opponent for Congress a “turbon topper,” to declaring that diplomacy with Iran wouldn’t replace “2000 US sorties” when it came to halting their nuclear ambitions, Pompeo was target rich in the unhinged department. In 2013 he toured Guantanamo Bay, where a number of inmates were on a hunger strike, Pompeo, ever the Tea Party wit, quipped they “look like they gained weight.”
Still, compared to a Betsy DeVos, Scott Pruitt, or a Ben Carson, Pompeo was relatively tenable and had no serious problem getting confirmed. When Trump used him as window dressing during the disastrous initial visit to the CIA – “where’s Mike? There he is.” – gushing about how smart his guy was in between waxing on the need to abscond with Iraqi oil, Pompeo was shown for exactly the Trump lackey he didn’t seem to mind becoming.
In contrast to Pompeo, Rex Tillerson qualified as a heavyweight within the Trump cabinet. The incoming Secretary of State, while without any diplomatic experience at all, still headed Exxon for 14 years. His extensive experience dealing with Russia, and indeed Putin, was spun as a positive by GOP Senators guiding his confirmation, a fact that time and information have rendered increasingly significant. But Tillerson was never going to fit serving Trump because he was everything the Donald wasn’t, but wished he was. Tillerson was a real CEO, a genuine business titan, craven and souless to be sure, but legitimate nonetheless, not the reality TV phoney he would be working for. When both men predictably found the situation untenable, and the Texan was cut loose, sycophancy moved to the top of the list of requirements for his replacement.
Pompeo, after spending the previous year cheerfully eating the President’s shit sandwiches about the incompetence and dishonesty of US intelligence services, fit that bill perfectly. And so the office once inhabited by the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Dean Acheson and Henry Kissinger was now occupied by a man, who just a few years earlier declared Islam to be part of “the evil” surrounding the US, which only need to turn to Jesus to defend itself until the Rapture. Who said you need optimism to be a diplomat?
Which brings us to Trump’s recent European tour and its fallout. Watching Pompeo testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday, one could have mistaken him for an aide or some other staffer, so stiff and rote were his responses to questions geared to establish where the POTUS’ traitorous performance ended and US policy began. Pompeo was of little help on that score. The US Secretary of State was rude and short… and worthless, in other words doing his job exactly as his boss wanted him to do it.
Senators wanted the top US diplomat to brief them on what the President and Putin discussed. Reasonable in the extreme, routine procedure really, a simple debrief for the legislative branch. Only one problem, they were asking the wrong guy; Pompeo knew as much about the subject as they did…nada!
Instead of simply admitting he was not privy to any of Trump and his handler’s conversation, Pompeo curtly recited “current US policy has not changed” when a Senator inquired about whether it had been discussed at the Summit. Syria? Policy hasn’t changed. Crimea? Policy hasn’t changed. When they didn’t let him get away with such nonsense and pushed back, for example did Trump secretly give away the store on Crimea, Pompeo robotically affirmed sanctions remained in place. Rude and inanely partisan, the Secretary of State was blissfully inept at his job; again, exactly how his jefe likes it.
Anyone with any delusions that adults are present anywhere in Northwest DC to prevent L’Enfant Terrible from doing his worst got a fire hose in the face Wednesday. Pompeo’s performance was no different than when he sat next to Trump in Brussels, with the same vacant look, as the President expressed guttural disdain for the defining Western alliance of the last 70 years. Government by Sean Hannity and the Mar-A-Lago regulars. Believe it! BC