Marie Yovanovitch Will Stick Her Sensible Wedge Pump Right Up Mike Pompeo's Craven A**

But diplomatically!

BREAKING: Mike Pompeo is a rancid garbage person! Must credit Wonkette!

Just kidding. But the news cycle has once again forced the secretary of State into comparison with former Ukrainian ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and the juxtaposition only highlights what a craven, self-serving little pissant we have at the helm of our nation's foreign policy apparatus.

Here's Ambassador Yovanovitch receiving the Trainor Award for distinguished diplomatic service yesterday at Georgetown University.

Sustained standing ovation for Marie Yovanovich at Georgetown University where she accepted the Trainor Award for e… https: //t.co/3qupCkcGWH

— Agenthades (@Agenthades) 1581553876.0 

Reflecting on the past year, she joked about Trump's PERFECT PERFECT PHONE CALL with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying,"When you go through some things, to fall back on cliches, you have to dig deep."

She went on to eviscerate Pompeo's leadership at Foggy Bottom, where he has decimated the foreign service in his zeal to keep in Trump's mercurial good graces.

"To be blunt, an amoral, 'keep 'em guessing' foreign policy that substitutes threats, fear and confusion for trust cannot work," she warned, later adding, "Right now, the State Department is in trouble. Senior leaders lack policy vision, moral clarity and leadership."

She didn't have to use Pompeo's name; everyone knew she was talking about that heat-seeking missile for Trump's ass . That's why she's getting a fancy diplomat award, because she can say it mean without using swears!

But over at Just Security , they were feeling slightly less diplomatic. Former senior CIA operations officer Douglas London describes Pompeo's tenure at the CIA as a train wreck and directly accuses him of sabotaging his own employees and "subjugat[ing] the country's interests to those of the president."

According to London, Pompeo's main priority wasn't maximizing America's intelligence advantage. It was sucking up to Trump to advance his own career. Pompeo was constantly soiling his tightie-whities at the prospect that an unflattering story might reach the president's delicate ears.

Anything that could somehow embarrass the president, or make him appear weak, had to be avoided in order to insulate those in his orbit like Pompeo, who had his eyes on yet bigger and better things. The president's advisers knew their own political futures depended on staying in Trump's favor and providing him with so-called "successes." Therefore, Pompeo prioritized shielding Trump from news he didn't want to hear, an approach to the job that sometimes subjugated the country's interests to those of the president. Concerned more about his own standing with the president, Pompeo also refused to provide the CIA workforce with any words of support in the face of Trump's repeated attacks on it, fearing such encouragement would anger Trump.

Pompeo pared down briefings to "a handful of the most senior officers" and stayed virtually silent so that "there would be nothing quotable for which he might have to later explain himself to a cross president were his words to leak." And if something did get out, Pompeo "unleash[ed] a verbal barrage of insults, humiliations and curses more familiar from my days as a Marine recruit on Parris Island's drill deck" on the poor civil servant who dared to jeopardize his meteoric rise to power.

Which is just shocking to hear! Who knew Pompeo abused men with the same vitriol he uses for lady reporters who dare to ask him about his involvement in Donald Trump's Ukrainian shakedown scheme? Who could possibly guess that a guy who'd pretend that an experienced international reporter couldn't locate Ukraine on a map would insist that the CIA change its acronyms to align with the Fox News preferred nomenclature.

CIA had used the standardization: the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or, ISIL, which was aligned with how the group saw and referred to itself. But, Trump didn't like that name, associating its use with his predecessor, President Barack Obama, and demanded we call it as he did, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. In a compromise, CIA used the Arabic for Syria, "al-Shams," to provide the president his preferred "ISIS" acronym.

Even by today's debased standards, that's pathetic .

London credits Pompeo's successor as being slightly better — "unlike Pompeo, [Gina] Haspel is a voracious reader and savvy as both an intelligence consumer and practitioner" — but not by much.

Those of us who have worked with Haspel over the years had little expectation that she would push back against this president. It's not been in her nature to take such stands against authority, as the record shows in her ascendency. Neither will the images of her enthusiastic applause during the president's State of the Union speech be lost on CIA's workforce, particularly when juxtaposed with the absence of any such visible hero worship betrayed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were also in the audience. Some contend this public stance provides Haspel a better ability to privately influence the president. In practice, however, her actions reflect a continued unwillingness to spend any of her political capital on encouraging the president to be more supportive of the Intelligence Community's views, priorities or its workforce's morale.

Profiles in courage, the lot of them!

Hey, you know, if we Democrats stick together and support whoever emerges with our party's nomination, we can send these assholes packing and nominate Masha Yovanovitch for Secretary of State. JUST SAYIN'.

[ Just Security / NYT ]

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