Perhaps the most striking aspect of the report that Admiral Jackson, the US VA nominee, is now being orphaned by President Trump, is the ongoing theme of this Administration – the selection of unqualified or otherwise unacceptable nominees for positions in the government, who end up stepping aside when they fail – or, in a few cases, winning confirmation to their posts, only to leave in disgrace. Think Price, or Tillerson.
These are avoidable. These are unforced and embarrassing errors. You’d think the Administration would learn.
Repeat that. You’d think the Administration would learn.
In the natural world, one of the marks of a successful creature or entity is its capability to learn, whether how to communicate better with those it hopes to win to its causes, or where to best find prey that can be slaughtered and eaten.
And the unsuccessful? Those who never learned this simple lesson. We should have perhaps realized that this Administration is doomed to failure when we first heard about this incident, which James Hohmann helpfully reminds us of on PowerPost:
When Trump fired Chris Christie as the head of his transition team on Nov. 11, after the then-New Jersey governor expressed opposition to hiring Michael Flynn as national security adviser, Flynn and Steve Bannon, who would be White House chief strategist, celebrated by tossing binders full of potential personnel picks into the trash, according to a Politico report last year.
A disdain for careful planning and investigation marks those doomed to failure. I’m as much an off-the-cuff as the next guy – maybe more than I should be – but when we’re talking about important government matters involving the safety of the nation, throwing away material of this sort marks, for the careful observer, the people who have little more going for them than an unreasoning rage at the political opposition – hardly the mark of mature political types.
