Should have thought twice about playing partisan games in the transition, dontcha think?
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition staff has issued a blanket edict requiring politically appointed ambassadors to leave their overseas posts by Inauguration Day, according to several American diplomats familiar with the plan, breaking with decades of precedent by declining to provide even the briefest of grace periods.
The mandate — issued “without exceptions,” according to a terse State Department cable sent on Dec. 23, diplomats who saw it said — threatens to leave the United States without Senate-confirmed envoys for months in critical nations like Germany, Canada and Britain. In the past, administrations of both parties have often granted extensions on a case-by-case basis to allow a handful of ambassadors, particularly those with school-age children, to remain in place for weeks or months.
Mr. Trump, by contrast, has taken a hard line against leaving any of President Obama’s political appointees in place as he prepares to take office on Jan. 20 with a mission of dismantling many of his predecessor’s signature foreign and domestic policy achievements. “Political” ambassadors, many of them major donors who are nominated by virtue of close ties with the president, almost always leave at the end of his term; ambassadors who are career diplomats often remain in their posts. — NY Times
We see what Kerry did. What Obama is doing with Russia. What he did with Iran. And others.
Why in Hell would we want his personal appointees overseeing our ongoing relations with other nations?
If, as NYTimes asserts, that there are ‘critical’ nations like Germanay, Canada, and Britain… why would we entrust them to Obama’s flunkies? Wouldn’t that cause GREATER problems than briefly empty position would?
Besides, if the appointees we’ve seen so far are any indication, the incoming ambassadors will be great choices.
