When word leaked that Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, a holder of the Order of Friendship award in Putin's Russia, was Donald Trump's choice for secretary of state, John McCain had this thoughtful response:Pat: he did!
"Vladimir Putin is a thug, a bully, and a murderer and anybody else who describes him as anything else is lying."
Yet, Putin is something else, the leader of the largest nation on earth, a great power with enough nuclear weapons to wipe the United States off the face of the earth. And we have to deal with him.
McCain was echoed by the senior Democrat on foreign relations, Bob Menendez, who said naming Tillerson secretary of state would be "alarming and absurd ... guaranteeing Russia has a willing accomplice in the (Trump) Cabinet guiding our nation's foreign policy."
Sen Marco Rubio chimed in: "Being a 'friend of Vladimir' is not an attribute I am hoping for from a Secretary of State."
If just three GOP senators vote no on Tillerson, and Democrats vote as a bloc against him, his nomination would go down. President Trump would sustain a major and humiliating defeat.
...And here is the heart of the objection to Tillerson. He wants to end sanctions and partner with Putin's Russia, as does Trump. But among many in the mainstream media, think tanks, websites, and on the Hill, this is craven appeasement. For such as these, the Cold War is never over.
...The people who most indignantly condemned Trump's questioning of Obama's birth certificate as a scurrilous scheme to delegitimize his presidency, now seek to delegitimize Trump's presidency.
...Early in his presidency, if not before, Trump is going to have to impose his foreign policy upon his own party and, indeed, upon his own government. Or his presidency will be broken, as was Lyndon Johnson's.
A good place to begin is by accepting the McCain-Marco challenge and nominating Rex Tillerson for secretary of state. Let's get it on.
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