The Promise of Pompeo

[endicom]

The New York Sun
Editorial
Mar. 13, 2018

President Trump’s decision to promote Mike Pompeo to secretary of state is a huge step in the right direction. It means that, if Mr. Pompeo is confirmed, the administration will have in the top foreign policy job an officer who was first in his class at West Point, served as an officer of armor in Europe, soared at law school, mastered politics in Congress, has run the Central Intelligence Agency — and who agrees with the president.

What a contrast with Secretary Tillerson. The ex-chairman of ExxonMobil had some wonderful instincts (such as his plan to cut the State Department budget by 30%). He was, though, hobbled from the start by being described as the “adult in the room,” as if the President of America were a child. Plus, he turned out to be crosswise with Mr. Trump on an array of major issues.

More... https://www.nysun.com/editorials/the-promise-of-pompeo/90214/

[TomSea]

Pompeo sure knows a lot, I worry some that it can be the "hard a$$es" that get things all messed up. Hoping for a cautious approach. They are the experts, not me.  Iran is a threat; I'm not sure if they are something to get abnormally upset about. We'll see.

That's basically a Trump campaign promise, to bring Iran into line, tear up that deal...

[DB]

So he's a full blown swamp creature.

[EasyAce]

So he's a full blown swamp creature.

Tillerson, a government newbie who had spent the previous four decades at ExxonMobil, seemed frequently out of sync and even out of touch with the mercurial president. Yesterday, for example, Tillerson said that the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy in London was "an egregious act" that "clearly came from Russia," which was in sharp contrast to [Sarah] Huckabee Sanders' repeated reluctance to point the finger at Moscow. Last week, too, the secretary of state was clearly out of the loop when Trump decided to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. (Last October, in a reversal of those positions, the president said Tillerson was "wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man.")

Pompeo, a former congressman and Army tank officer, is seen as much more hawkish than Tillerson. He supports the bulk collection of Americans' metadata, the use of CIA black sites, enhanced interrogation methods, and the execution of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Pompeo's replacement at the CIA, his former deputy Gina Haspel, had a "leading role in torture" during the Bush administration, according to this New York Times[/url] profile. Back when Tillerson/Pompeo rumors were heating up three months ago, the Weekly Standard pointed out that Haspel's prominence soothed some agency nerves frayed by Trump's sporadically intemperate criticisms.

So the out-of-touch realist is out at Foggy Bottom, the partisan pro-surveillance hawk is in, and Langley is now run by an in-house torturer. Meanwhile, Trump's personal assistant, John McEntee, has reportedly been escorted out of the White House due to security reasons. In other words, it's a normal Tuesday morning.

---Matt Welch, Reason.

Sometimes you can't help wondering whether we're seeing not a draining of the swamp but a removal of one species of swamp creature
in favour of another.

[TomSea]

So he's a full blown swamp creature.

cough, cough

Trump's new secretary of state is a Tea Party Republican who couldn't be more different from Rex Tillerson
http://www.businessinsider.com/mike-pompeo-a-tea-party-republican-is-different-from-rex-tillerson-2018-3

That's what Medved was saying tea party, swamp? Republican in Kansas? Ha!