Trump has made some excellent choices
for his Cabinet so far. Nikki Haley for U.N. Ambassador? Awesome. Betsy DeVos
for Education Secretary? Superb. James Mattis for Defense Secretary? Stellar.
And just this week, word came that he will choose
former Texas governor Rick Perry as Energy Secretary, another great choice to
flesh out an already qualified and conservative circle of advisers.
And then, just as we’re all becoming
slightly giddy at just how well the new Cabinet is shaping up, Trump goes and picks
ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to lead the State Department.
In short, Tillerson is a bad choice and
should be denied Senate confirmation. Bad for conservatives, who were hoping
for a full-spectrum constitutional conservative and instead get a man who supports a carbon tax and whose company has given money to Planned Parenthood. And bad for America, who needs someone who
will boldly stand for American interests and human rights around the world, and
will instead be offered someone who was awarded the Russian Order of Friendship
and opposes Western sanctions over the invasion of Crimea.
And by getting the nomination, Tillerson
beat out both Mitt Romney and John Bolton, two men who would have been trusted
to deal forcefully with both Russia and other American adversaries around the
world.
Several Republican senators
have already hinted that they will oppose Tillerson during Senate confirmation
proceedings. The Left, too, will almost certainly oppose him based on his
resume as a “Big Oil CEO”, but this is one of the rare instances where the
goals of Right and Left are the same, despite their differing reasons.
Rex Tillerson should get a fair hearing
in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, once the nomination is made
official, as should all presidential nominees. But in the end, he should never
be allowed inside the State Department in any official capacity.
No comments:
Post a Comment