Former Attorney General Bill Barr says Donald Trump once told him “the recipe for a really good tweet is just the right amount of crazy.” That might be a good recipe for tweeting, but it’s a potentially disastrous one for picking Cabinet members.
Gaetz is astonishing from any angle you take. The chief prosecutor who has never prosecuted a single case? The cabinet position most demanding maturity given to the least mature member of Congress? Yikes.
Personally, I'd promote Hegseth from questionable to good. There might be choices as good or better (Sen. Cotton for sure), but I still don't think that makes him questionable. Also, I would demote Noem to crazy. It isn't because she is actually crazy, but she is weak, and not particularly bright. Whether she is conservative enough is a side issue. There are many choices vastly superior to her. Regarding Gaetz, that should warrant a category below crazy if possible. Overall, a mixed bag as you write. I think there's more good than bad, so far.... Just my two cents.
The reason Cotton has not been offered a job is he took himself out of the running. The Gaetz pick is deranged. Gabbard I'm not so worried about as she wont be making policy won't be in the cabinet and is greatly outnumbered by the better security figures including the chief of staff and NSA both working out of the White House.
The complaining about Hegseth raises another comedy of qualifications: Tony Austin, and a Pentagon that hasn't been able to pass an audit in a decade.
No, he hasn't run a large bureaucracy. He'll need people who know the DoD around him to do his job. I suspect that's already been considered. But he's a great choice if you want someone to re-orient the military around its core mission and be a powerful voice in front of Congress and the appropriators who care more about their donors than they do about the young men and women they deploy in the battlefield.
The DoD has an even bigger problem in declining enlistment. Turns out young people don't want to fight political wars or look forward to gay poetry night on the destroyer. Hegseth will be helpful there too.
Your comments on Hegseth and Gaetz are entirely correct in normal times, but I don't think these are normal times. If you assume that DoD and DoJ are more of less operable organizations, you'd want to find a manager who can sharpen their processes and improve the workforce.
But if you believe that they are essentially corrupt, out-of-control, unaccountable bureaucracies, a conventional resume will not do. That's obviously where Trump is coming from, and I agree with him, though I'd rather find a more reliable disruptor than Gaetz. Trump doesn't want a competent, distinguished attorney to lead the DoJ; he wants someone to fumigate the place. From that angle, putting the guy who blew up two Speakerships makes sense.
You said: "There is no systemic corruption at the (DoJ), but there is systemic bias that needs to be dealt with." How is lying to the FISA Court, turning a Clinton-campaign dossier into a federal case, turning Jan. 6 into a Reichstag Fire-like witch hunt, using terrorism laws to spy on and threaten anti-gender theory parents at school board meetings, etc., etc., etc., bias? Over the last four years, DoJ has turned into a Soviet-style Ministry of Justice.
The republicans voted to confirm Merrick Garland (Tillis, Cornyn et al) because a President deserves the right to pick his staff. Fine. But the fact is that Garland - a season attorney and judge with a fine resume - turned the DoJ into a junkyard. There is not declining public confidence in the DoJ; there is NO confidence in DoJ.
People have remarked about the trafficking investigation involving Gaetz. Well, given the past few years, I don't believe a thing any US attorney says until they charge someone and show the evidence, and in Gaetz's case, neither has happened. Instead, the government has had these allegations for years and done nothing with them. Why not? And if people are concerned that the DoJ has allowed a creep to sit in Congress, why not view the upcoming confirmation hearings as an opportunity to finally get the dirty laundry on the table? The public deserves to know.
Trump, like any President, deserves to know that his Oval Office is not being bugged, that there aren't double agents sitting with him on AF1 and listening in to his conversations with Vladimir Putin. This appointment of Gaetz reminds of JFK's appointment of Bobby Kennedy as AG, which was equally controversial at the time. Old Man Kennedy told his son to appoint RFK, because "you can't trust any of the bastards over there." That's how Trump is probably thinking, and I can't blame him. Like JFK, he's dispatched the junkyard dog. It's a risk, and he'll live with the consequences.
I agree with the criticisms (from the right) on Noem. However, to call her "unqualified" is unfair. She knows how to run a large bureaucracy, she's been a successful Governor, she takes the issue of immigration very seriously. I would trade her in a heart-beat for the inert republican object who sits in our state house in Boise. At least she can ride a horse.
She's not going to be tip of Trump's spear on deportation and border security, anyway: Tom Homan is. She's going to defend it Congressional hearings. What Trump is doing here is putting very articulate people who handled public pressure well in front of his operators. That's a common way to staff a business in a turnaround situation, when you know have to work fast and you're going to break a lot of china.
The question about qualifications amuses me, because it comes into stark focus when you look at the current Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, who has repeatedly lied to Congress and twisted our laws to flood the country with drugs and illegal immigrants.
Gaetz is astonishing from any angle you take. The chief prosecutor who has never prosecuted a single case? The cabinet position most demanding maturity given to the least mature member of Congress? Yikes.
Personally, I'd promote Hegseth from questionable to good. There might be choices as good or better (Sen. Cotton for sure), but I still don't think that makes him questionable. Also, I would demote Noem to crazy. It isn't because she is actually crazy, but she is weak, and not particularly bright. Whether she is conservative enough is a side issue. There are many choices vastly superior to her. Regarding Gaetz, that should warrant a category below crazy if possible. Overall, a mixed bag as you write. I think there's more good than bad, so far.... Just my two cents.
The reason Cotton has not been offered a job is he took himself out of the running. The Gaetz pick is deranged. Gabbard I'm not so worried about as she wont be making policy won't be in the cabinet and is greatly outnumbered by the better security figures including the chief of staff and NSA both working out of the White House.
The complaining about Hegseth raises another comedy of qualifications: Tony Austin, and a Pentagon that hasn't been able to pass an audit in a decade.
No, he hasn't run a large bureaucracy. He'll need people who know the DoD around him to do his job. I suspect that's already been considered. But he's a great choice if you want someone to re-orient the military around its core mission and be a powerful voice in front of Congress and the appropriators who care more about their donors than they do about the young men and women they deploy in the battlefield.
The DoD has an even bigger problem in declining enlistment. Turns out young people don't want to fight political wars or look forward to gay poetry night on the destroyer. Hegseth will be helpful there too.
Devil's Advocate here again...
Your comments on Hegseth and Gaetz are entirely correct in normal times, but I don't think these are normal times. If you assume that DoD and DoJ are more of less operable organizations, you'd want to find a manager who can sharpen their processes and improve the workforce.
But if you believe that they are essentially corrupt, out-of-control, unaccountable bureaucracies, a conventional resume will not do. That's obviously where Trump is coming from, and I agree with him, though I'd rather find a more reliable disruptor than Gaetz. Trump doesn't want a competent, distinguished attorney to lead the DoJ; he wants someone to fumigate the place. From that angle, putting the guy who blew up two Speakerships makes sense.
You said: "There is no systemic corruption at the (DoJ), but there is systemic bias that needs to be dealt with." How is lying to the FISA Court, turning a Clinton-campaign dossier into a federal case, turning Jan. 6 into a Reichstag Fire-like witch hunt, using terrorism laws to spy on and threaten anti-gender theory parents at school board meetings, etc., etc., etc., bias? Over the last four years, DoJ has turned into a Soviet-style Ministry of Justice.
The republicans voted to confirm Merrick Garland (Tillis, Cornyn et al) because a President deserves the right to pick his staff. Fine. But the fact is that Garland - a season attorney and judge with a fine resume - turned the DoJ into a junkyard. There is not declining public confidence in the DoJ; there is NO confidence in DoJ.
People have remarked about the trafficking investigation involving Gaetz. Well, given the past few years, I don't believe a thing any US attorney says until they charge someone and show the evidence, and in Gaetz's case, neither has happened. Instead, the government has had these allegations for years and done nothing with them. Why not? And if people are concerned that the DoJ has allowed a creep to sit in Congress, why not view the upcoming confirmation hearings as an opportunity to finally get the dirty laundry on the table? The public deserves to know.
Trump, like any President, deserves to know that his Oval Office is not being bugged, that there aren't double agents sitting with him on AF1 and listening in to his conversations with Vladimir Putin. This appointment of Gaetz reminds of JFK's appointment of Bobby Kennedy as AG, which was equally controversial at the time. Old Man Kennedy told his son to appoint RFK, because "you can't trust any of the bastards over there." That's how Trump is probably thinking, and I can't blame him. Like JFK, he's dispatched the junkyard dog. It's a risk, and he'll live with the consequences.
I agree with the criticisms (from the right) on Noem. However, to call her "unqualified" is unfair. She knows how to run a large bureaucracy, she's been a successful Governor, she takes the issue of immigration very seriously. I would trade her in a heart-beat for the inert republican object who sits in our state house in Boise. At least she can ride a horse.
She's not going to be tip of Trump's spear on deportation and border security, anyway: Tom Homan is. She's going to defend it Congressional hearings. What Trump is doing here is putting very articulate people who handled public pressure well in front of his operators. That's a common way to staff a business in a turnaround situation, when you know have to work fast and you're going to break a lot of china.
The question about qualifications amuses me, because it comes into stark focus when you look at the current Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, who has repeatedly lied to Congress and twisted our laws to flood the country with drugs and illegal immigrants.