To be honest, I only read Thomas Friedman’s column if I’m really trying to procrastinate. I lost patience with him back in the “Friedman Unit” days.
But today’s column is a doozy. Maybe the best column he’s ever done. It’s called Mike Pompeo Is the Worst Secretary of State Ever and it’s got two devastating points.
The first one actually goes back to Pomepeo’s days as Director of the C.I.A: “while Pompeo was C.I.A. director, the first foreign-planned terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 was being organized here and abroad, and while he was secretary of state it was carried out.”
Hell, if that were me — if the first foreign-planned terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11 developed on my watch and if I had just gotten rid of the State Department inspector general without explanation — I’d also be trying to distract attention.
I mean, if it were me, I might even claim that China concocted the coronavirus in a lab in Wuhan. Wait — that’s what Pompeo did!
The second point is that, Pompeo “has been the worst secretary of state in American history, without a single diplomatic achievement. …. Pompeo’s two most notable accomplishments as secretary of state are, metaphorically speaking, shooting two of his senior State Department officials in the back.” One was US Ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch . “The other was the department’s inspector general, Steve Linick, whom Pompeo got Trump to fire, reportedly because he was investigating — wait for it now — Pompeo’s own efforts to evade a congressional ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia and for improperly asking a State Department employee to run errands for him and his wife.”
But read the whole thing. I think it almost left scortch marks on the breakfast table.
