Can anybody envision Rudy or Mitt handling this situation as diplomatically as Hillary. Photograph provided by State Department |
Which is what makes the New York Times report Friday about the brawl taking place within the Republican ranks all the more interesting – a fight for Secretary of State. The position that has a major role in determining our nation’s foreign policy.
IT
SEEMS THE Republican establishment that was always skeptical of Trump would
like to see one-time presidential dreamer Mitt Romney put in the post. While
many of those who were with Trump from the beginning want another long-time
Trump loyalist installed there.
As
in Rudy Giuliani, the one-time New York mayor who would like to be thought of
as the law-and-order guy who cracked down on crime in the city during the 1990s
but also is remembered for a firm leadership in the days following that 2001
attack on the World Trade Center.
His
calm helped keep the city calm, which in turn helped keep the country as a
whole from going bonkers from thoughts that the Ay-rabs with their funky
Moos-lim religion were going to take over the world!
Will it take Giuliani presence in post... |
Personally,
the thought of either of those guys being put in as Secretary of State makes me
squeamish – largely because I suspect they’re both interested in resurrecting
their legacies and would likely try to do so with grand gestures that would put
the nation at-risk on the world stage!
I’M
NOT SAYING they’ll single-handedly get us into another war. But I wouldn’t put anything
past them. The only time Giuliani ever is rational is when he talks baseball –
he’s a hard-core New York Yankees fan in a way Hillary Clinton could never pull off.
If
anything, the one plus of having either of them in the post is that they’ll
make the record of a previous Secretary of State look all the more impressive
by comparison.
By
that, I mean Hillary herself – who served as Secretary of State from 2009-13.
Or during President Barack Obama’s first term in office.
... or that of Mitt to make us appreciate Hillary? |
The
conservative ideologues amongst us have their own set of reasons they will use
to denounce her time served in the post (Benghazi, anyone?), but I also recall
the points in which her service wound up helping to resurrect her political
reputation from her days as first lady and in the U.S. Senate to the point
where I suspect some people probably wished they could take back their ’08 support
of Obama.
I
SUSPECT THAT Romney wants the stink of losing the 2012 election cycle to Obama
removed from his name, while Giuliani probably remembers how close he came to
running against Clinton for that Senate seat in New York back in 2000.
He
probably thinks that had he not been forced to drop out (replaced by no-name
Rick Lazio), HE would have beaten Hillary back then and crushed her political
future. Is he delusional enough to think he can somehow get into Hillary’s old
political position and erase any memory that she ever existed?
Hillary never convincingly pulled off Yankee fandom... |
A
twisted way of thinking, to be sure. But when it comes to political people,
their way of viewing the world is often extreme by “real people” standards.
Then again, real people wouldn’t put up with any of the twisted nonsense it
takes to run for office.
Namely,
having to deal with people like Trump who are capable of twisting the truth
into absurdity to the point where we don’t have a clue where they really stand.
Which may have been his whole goal all along!
WHILE
NOBODY KNOWS what a “President Trump” will accomplish (anybody who says they
know is really just telling us what they want him to do), I do know that if it
strays too far from the ideologically right-wing dreams of Trump’s most intense
political backers, they will turn on him and cause their own form of chaos.
...but never looked as ridiculous as Trump! |
Which
may also go a long way toward rehabilitating Hillary Clinton’s political
reputation – which already is getting a jolt from the fact that some 2 million
more people wanted her to win this month’s elections rather than Trump.
Either
of the Trump picks for Secretary of State will make her era look all the more
competent. A Trump presidency will make her look all the more competent. The
day will come when most of us will have forgotten the details about why it was
we didn’t trust her – except maybe that she was a “her” instead of a “him.”
The
legacy of Hillary Clinton could well wind up being the woman we took a pass on
when we had the chance, but later wished we had picked for the top post!
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