Trump’s Cabinet is almost complete, with
only the nominations for Secretaries of Agriculture and Veteran’s Affairs, as
of this writing, left to announce. And what a Cabinet it’s shaping up to be.
My original intention was to write
something every time Trump announced a new Cabinet nomination, discussing the
good and the bad, but this quickly became unrealistic for one primary
reason—there are just so many good choices that people would quickly get tired
of me repeating lines about how great they all were. And I would get tired of
repeating them. But now, near the end of the process, seems an opportune time
to say: This is one great Cabinet.
Jeff Sessions at the Justice Department.
Rick Perry at Energy. Mike Pompeo at the CIA. Nikki Haley at the U.N., and
Betsy DeVos at Education. Mick Mulvaney as OMB head. This is the sort of
Cabinet I would have expected from a Cruz or Rubio administration, but I never
dared hope for even one of these picks from Donald Trump, the man who says
Planned Parenthood does “wonderful things” and that “[he] alone can fix”
America’s problems. (Well, Jeff Sessions was likely to get his choice of top
jobs after his hearty support in the primary. But certainly not Perry, he who
said Trump was a “cancer on conservatism”, or Haley, who implicitly criticized
Trump in her State of the Union response and endorsed two of his primary
opponents.)
To be sure, most of these appointments
are going to be a double-edged sword for conservatives. With the exception of
DeVos and Perry, many of Trump’s appointees will be leaving current elected
offices, so while the Justice Department gains a leader dedicated to proper
enforcement of the law, the Senate will lose a powerful voice for oversight and
against the expansion of government. The U.S. will gain a strong, unapologetic
voice on the world stage, but South Carolina will lose a talented, reforming
governor. And the OMB will gain a dedicated fiscal hawk, but the U.S. House
will lose one of the fiercest defenders of fiscal sanity and crusaders against
wasteful spending. Not every new vacancy will be filled by someone as dedicated
to conservative, constitutional ideals as their predecessor.
And not every Trump pick is equally
good. Wilbur Ross as Commerce Secretary is troubling, and while Rex Tillerson
may be a good man at heart, he should be opposed to lead the State Department. I haven’t failed to notice that the
announcements of many of Trump’s worse picks have been paired with, or closely
followed by, better ones (Tillerson for State and Perry for Energy were
announced at about the same time, for example). It remains to be seen which
members of the Cabinet Trump will value and listen to the most.
But overall, the incoming Cabinet will
be much stronger in constitutional principle than anything I dared dream during
the campaign, or on November 8th. Well done, Mr. President-elect.
And a very Merry Christmas to the Constitution.
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