Via Insty, I see that some career diplo-twerp is having a conniption fit over God-Emperor Trump’s ill-treatment of career diplomats.
Within the senior ranks, however, we watched our assignment possibilities vanish as the White House left top diplomatic positions vacant and handed out others as rewards to political cronies, campaign donors, and members of President Trump’s golf clubs. Senior jobs at the State Department which had typically been filled by career foreign service officers went to blatantly unqualified appointees. Sensitive diplomatic special envoy positions were given to people such as an assistant to Trump’s son-in-law.
Boo fucking hoo.
I don’t know where this little fart has been — warming a chair in State for three decades, apparently — but along with Custer’s difficulties in Wyoming, the news is that ambassadorships have always been a “spoils” position — doled out to political party favorites and donors.
It’s long been a truism that the entire State Department is simply a delivery vehicle for Democrat Party foreign policy, regardless of which party’s leader sits in the Oval Office or which party controls Congress, even. And it’s also true that State hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory, either: I remember full well how the U.S. Embassy staff in London had this huge party planned for Hillary Bitch Clinton’s coronation in 2016, and when it became apparent that she was having her broad ass kicked by the aforementioned Trump, how that party turned into a wake when the Electoral College count was concluded.
And now these apparatchiks are amazed, nay shocked that the President places them lower than pond scum on his daily to-do list? Frankly, I think that Trump’s swamp-draining efforts should have started with these fuckheads, and one of the few really bad hiring mistakes he made was Rex Tillotson, who as a lifelong corporate executive was always going to go with maintaining the status quo (i.e. the State Department position) in terms of our relationships with foreign powers — which is why Trump kicked him out, eventually, because Trump’s goal always was to change the nature of those relationships.
America pays a heavy price for turning statecraft into a playground for rich amateurs. Embarrassing blunders, scandals and mismanagement are commonplace for some of the most unqualified.
Uh huh. I remember when Bill Fucking Clinton made Senator Symbol — Carol Mosely-Braun (D-IL), the stupidest senator in living history — into an ambassador, and who was so inept that the host country’s foreign services department threw a party when she finally left. The country? New Zealand. Ask me how any Trump appointee could be worse than that. (And don’t even get me started on other Democrat SecState failures like Hillary “Libya” Clinton and John Fuckface Kerry, or we’ll be here all day.)
So the hell with these little placeholders in State. Their influence has been either incorrect — former bootlegger-turned-ambassador Joe Kennedy telling FDR that the Brits were going to be defeated by Nazi Germany in 1939 — or even inimical to our national interests — Alger Hiss, anyone? — and the career diplomats’ much-vaunted “expertise and experience” in foreign policy is far too overestimated.
This whole lament as linked is simply a tantrum because the President isn’t doing what they think he should be doing — almost a textbook definition of the Swamp that Trump promised to drain.
Don’t like what the Boss is doing? Quit and put your diplomatic formal suits to good use as headwaiters, you limpwristed pantywaists, the sooner the better.
Think they’re whining now? If I had been President-elect Trump, on the day after the 2016 election, I would have sent notice to each and every ambassador, each and every appointee in the State Department, that I expected their resignations on my desk by Inauguration Day. I would have empowered a team to review everyone on the list and suggest replacements for everyone who could not be depended on to forward my policies.
I’m surprised he didn’t – normal procedure for an incoming Administration, especially if of the opposition party, is to clean out all Presidential appointees. Even if you keep some of the people (it happens, Reagan moved Hans Mark from Secretary of the Air Force to NASA Administrator), you shuffle them around.
I keep being reminded of author Keith Laumer and his Retief stories…..
Can you imagine Keith Laumer as Sec State?
I know I’m in the right place when the first thing I want to comment has already been mentioned, twice.
Chadd in FL
Can anyone show me a victory for the State Dept? Is there any act or outcome that anyone can point at and say “Look, look at this right here. This is why we need the State Department.” What have they done that couldn’t be accomplished by an unpaid intern right out of high school?
For as long as I have been aware of politics, the State Department has done nothing but waste money, kiss up to dictators and push anti-American bullshit. The “experts” at State have only made people laugh at the term “expert”. They should all go play in traffic. This country would be better off.
Trying to find fault in your comment.
Can’t.
Never mind as far as I’ve been aware of politics; as far back as I’ve researched in depth, that is back to Wilson (The black sheep of the clan), the State Department has never done ANYTHING but “waste money, kiss up to dictators and push anti-American bullshit.” They loved how Mussolini “Made the trains run on time”, Herr Hitler and the Autobahns, and how the Soviets were nice enough to give Ambassador Davies the same horn for his car that the Cheka used, and with expected result. By the way, who has won the Walter Duranty Award lately (or has it been retired after giving it to Barak (Iranophile) Obama and John (fuckface) Kerry as a lifetime achievement award?)?
Sorry to be picky,but Custer had problems a little north of Wyoming in Montana at a little place called the “Greasy Grass” on the Little Bighorn River.
The New York Times said it was in Wyoming, so it must be true.
The “Interagency” is in turmoil…….
TFB, and they deserve every ulcer they grow.
So someone didn’t get the promotion they were expecting? Oh dear. And by throwing their toys out of the pram they demonstrate why they were unsuitable for the job.
Dakota,
You stole my thunder, but “Good on Ya”.
Even today, as one drives the road to or from Crow Agency to Custer Battlefield it is easy to imagine about 10,000 Indians hidden in all the little canyons and hollows that abound.
Rex Tillerson.
I’m reminded of what writer Frank Chodorov said in a different context: “Want to get rid of the communists in the State Department – get rid of the jobs!”