There are two competing visions of what Voice of America should be.

Kari Lake has the correct one.

Donald Trump intends to nominate Kari Lake to head the Voice of America. I’m not a fan of Lake, a former Democrat and Obama supporter turned over-the-top MAGA enthusiast who lost two winnable elections in Arizona (one for Governor and one for Senator), who denied both defeats, and who was in the forefront of those who denied Trump’s 2020 defeat.

But Lake was always going to get an important post from Trump (there were rumors she would be selected as our ambassador to Mexico). Given that inevitability, head of VOA is probably Lake’s best use. In fact, I believe VOA is desperately in need of someone like Lake (though not necessarily Lake herself).

The underlying issue is what America’s voice to the rest of the world should be. In my opinion, that voice should be unreservedly pro-America. America has its warts, of course, but in my view we should not be proclaiming them to a worldwide audience. There are plenty of other voices doing that.

Instead, VOA should be talking up America. That doesn’t require speaking falsely. There’s plenty that can truthfully be said about what’s right and virtuous about our great country. That’s where VOA’s focus should be.

To most of our readers, this view of what VOA should be probably seems self-evident. And to those who haven’t been paying attention, an unambiguously pro-America stance might seem like table stakes when it comes to selecting a VOA leader.

Sadly, the opposite seems closer to the truth. VOA is not unambiguously pro-America, nor does it even try to be.

My experiences with VOA occurred during George W. Bush’s second term. I was on a broadcast in which it was claimed that 10,000 lives were lost due to Bush’s alleged negligence in responding to Hurricane Katrina. This claim wasn’t just baseless. It was blatantly false. And, of course, injurious to our reputation.

On another broadcast, it was claimed that Bush knew Saddam Hussein lacked weapons of mass destruction but led the U.S. into war anyway. This claim, too, was baseless, inflammatory, and almost certainly false. Indeed, it’s ridiculous to believe that Bush would start a war for the stated reason of purging Iraq of WMD if he knew none would be discovered after we invaded.

I haven’t followed VOA since the Bush days. However, it’s safe to assume that the left-liberals at VOA who slandered Bush’s America have been no more charitable in portraying Donald Trump’s.

Can it possibly be in America’s interest to slander our government with baseless and false claims that cast it in a horribly negative light? Of course not.

But supporters of VOA’s approach would argue that it should present facts (as opposed to falsehoods) that cast America in a negative light. Indeed, I heard such an argument on CNN last night from a left-wing media critic. He contended that by presenting negative information about America, VOA shows the rest of the world what a free media landscape looks like and demonstrates that America has one.

Is this argument sincere, or just a pretext for allowing those who hate Republicans and have mixed (at best) views about America to vent and virtue signal to the rest of the world? I don’t know.

But let’s take the argument seriously, which is usually the best practice if one wants to conduct a serious discussion. If we do, there’s a genuine case for leaving VOA the way it is.

In my view, however, there’s a much better case for a full-scale makeover. The world is a dangerous place, full of enemies who wish to undermine, and if possible destroy, our great experiment in ordered liberty.

In this world, I see no room for using taxpayer funds to cast America in a bad light, never mind the false light I saw VOA cast during the Bush years.

Nor do I believe that America needs to indulge in self-flagellation to prove to the rest of the world that we have a free media. The world knows ours to be a free country. That’s one reason why so many millions of people want to migrate here. And much of the world has access to CNN, which demonstrates every day that our news outlets can present America in whatever light they desire.

But even if there were a need to convince the world that American media outlets enjoy freedom of expression, the cost of presenting the left’s version of America — callous, racist, imperialistic — to the world exceeds any benefit from showing off the First Amendment.

In any case, Donald Trump won the election. It’s his vision of VOA’s proper role that should prevail during his administration.

Trump wants VOA to be unabashedly pro-America. He has made that clear. Kari Lake shares that vision. There’s no doubt that, if she becomes the head of VOA (not a foregone conclusion because Trump lacks the power unilaterally to install her), she will try to implement that vision. And given her background in broadcast journalism, it’s likely she will know how to go about it.

Is Lake the ideal person for the job? I don’t think so. Having denied the outcome of three different elections, she will fairly be attacked for being less than a reliable source of information. Ideally, VOA would be headed by someone who views its mission the way Lake does but who has more credibility.

But we can’t have everything. In my view, Lake would be good at this job, which represents her highest and best use in the Trump administration.