Cleaning House

The new Secretary of State will have a very free hand, as the entire senior leadership team of the State Department just resigned -- or, possibly, were required to resign.

Of course, after the Obama era -- and the Kerry State Department following on the Clinton State Department -- that is exactly what is needed. The Post describes this as the new Secretary's job getting harder, but I frankly think his job would have been impossible without replacing at least the entire top level of personnel.

10 comments:

E Hines said...

From The Washington Post's article: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s job running the State Department just got considerably more difficult. The entire senior level of management officials resigned Wednesday, part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior foreign service officers....

Not so much. SecState Tillerson's job just got a whole lot easier with the departure of these old heads.

Eric Hines

raven said...

Fantastic news! Now for firing the rest.

Texan99 said...

It's impossible for me to imagine regretting the departure of anyone at the head of that department. Every single person there either participated in fraud or stood silent watching it. Maybe they're great diplomats and administrators, I don't know, but I'm happy to see them all go.

Anonymous said...

More Fantastic news!!!!

Back on the November Dad29 posted this to his blog that I loved at the time.....



https://dad29.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-feature-not-bug.html

A Feature, Not a Bug

Headline:

More than a quarter of federal government employees would consider quitting if Donald Trump
was elected president, according to a new survey.

http://freebeacon.com/politics/survey-27-percent-govt-workers-might-quit-trump-elected/

Aaaaannnnnd so?

Here's a follow-on question:
What percentage of FedGov employees will be sent to prison after Trump is elected?



-Mississippi

Eric Blair said...

Washington Post: Fake News.

Anonymous said...

Texas99, I beg to differ on at least two of the people whose resignations were accepted. I know them to be people of integrity and excellent career diplomats. In one case, he was as distraught as everyone by the Benghazi mess (and worked to try and get accurate information), and in the other case, she rose to the pinnacle of her career track at the wrong time. I hope that they both assume other positions within the Department because of their character and integrity, but suspect they'll go into retirement.

Ymar Sakar said...

Not very healthy having a bunch of fifth column traitors doing your subordinate work if you want to clean house. Accidents tend to happen and replacements are easy to get.

douglas said...

Quasairenaissanceman, can you define "excellent career diplomat". I think this would be crux of the matter in terms of whether or not we might think their resignations were less than ideal.

At any rate, knowing that many needed to go, I'm not sure it isn't important for the new administration to know that the heads at State are people they can trust. They've still got a great deal of work to do and there will be those under them who will be less than cooperative.

Anonymous said...

I certainly do not dispute the right of the administration to appoint whomever they feel best suited to the position, my point is that it is not necessarily an unalloyed good.

In the two cases I am referring to, they both take their oath to defend the Constitution seriously, and understand what it means to be a servant of the American people. One has worked against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, to include keeping them out of terrorist hands. Too bad some of his ideas on Syria weren't taken into account before, during, and after the "red line" was declared, crossed, and ignored. The other dedicated her career to the protection of American citizens abroad, and greatly strengthened visa screening procedures, while still trying to keep pace with growing visa demand from China.

Both have done good work for the country, and I hope that they land in other positions within the Department, rather than leave the service entirely--that would be a significant loss. The approach seems to be based on the position the person is filling, rather than looking at the person's ability to contribute to the administration's priorities and whether or not their continued presence would help or hinder a smooth transition.

As I said, it isn't an unalloyed good (although, yes, quite a few do need to go).

douglas said...

" it is not necessarily an unalloyed good"
Well, very few things are.

From the sound of it then, perhaps they should have been retained, or perhaps they should be restored or reallocated, but sometimes we just have to live with things less than ideal.

OF course, it may have also been a signal that the administration wanted to send to other departments. There may be value in that to be considered as well, to counter balance the costs here.