{"id":1316771,"date":"2019-11-16T21:48:01","date_gmt":"2019-11-17T04:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/micek-column-impeachment-witnesses-the-heroes-we-need-right-now\/"},"modified":"2019-11-16T21:48:01","modified_gmt":"2019-11-17T04:48:01","slug":"micek-column-impeachment-witnesses-the-heroes-we-need-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/micek-column-impeachment-witnesses-the-heroes-we-need-right-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Micek column: Impeachment witnesses the heroes we need right now"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If Ambassador Bill Taylor didn\u2019t exist already, we\u2019d have to invent him.<\/p>\n

With a made-for-TV voice filled to the brim with gravitas, the West Point grad and career public servant was the living embodiment of everything we hope for from our government employees.<\/p>\n

Taylor unflappably told Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday that he didn\u2019t consider himself \u201ca star witness for anything,\u201d even as they peppered him clearly leading questions on the opening day of the panel\u2019s impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Next to him sat George Kent, the State Department\u2019s senior official for Ukraine. With a scholarly bearing complimented by his bow tie, the Harvard graduate and career diplomat spoke movingly of his family\u2019s long history of public service.<\/p>\n

After three years of listening to President Donald Trump carp groundlessly about biased judges, the \u201cdeep state\u201d and witch hunts, the deeply knowledgeable public servants were a visceral reminder of the crucial durability of those institutions and why they need to be protected from the wrecking ball in the White House.<\/p>\n

Kent dispassionately unspooled the reasoning behind the United States\u2019 support for Ukraine and the vital importance of protecting it against Putin\u2019s rapacious Russia. It was a stark reminder of the intellectual black hole sitting behind the Resolute Desk, and of the 45th president\u2019s complete ignorance of history and his utter disinterest in learning about world affairs.<\/p>\n

After all, it was Trump who once marveled that many people \u201cdon\u2019t realize\u201d that President Abraham Lincoln was a Republican (everyone does) and offered that many people also don\u2019t know that the Korean War hasn\u2019t ended, either.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s actual, palpable evidence of what conservative author (and vocal Trump critic) Tom Nichols aptly described as \u201cthe death of expertise,\u201d in his 2017 book of the same name.<\/p>\n

\u201d \u2026 we\u2019re proud of not knowing things,\u201d Nichols wrote. \u201cAmericans have reached a point where ignorance, especially of any public policy issue, is an actual virtue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contrast that against Kent, whose stores of knowledge and appreciation for history appeared bottomless at times.<\/p>\n

The veteran diplomat vividly connected such foreign-born public servants as Lt. Col. Alexander Vindland and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch \u2013 who have served with dignity and distinction, and who became the targets of smear campaigns \u2013 to indispensable foreign-born partners of American history.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are the 21st century heirs of two giants of 20th century U.S. national security policy who were born abroad \u2013 my former professor Zbigniew Brzezinski and his fellow immigrant Henry Kissinger,\u201d Kent said. \u201cLike the Brzezinskis and Kissingers, the Yovanovitches and Vindmans fled Nazi and communist oppression to contribute to a stronger, more secure America.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then there was Taylor, who remained as impassive as Jack Webb\u2019s Sgt. Joe Friday character on the old \u201cDragnet\u201d TV show.As The Washington Post reports, Taylor rarely strayed beyond a \u201cYes, sir,\u201d in his answers.<\/p>\n

Though it was Taylor who offered the chief bombshell during the hearing\u2019s first day, describing a phone call in which \u201cTrump spoke to another diplomat and checked on the status of the investigations he had urged Ukraine to pursue.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of their testimony, it was tough not to yearn for an America that seems to be receding into the rearview mirror: One where expertise and knowledge are still revered and where public service is honored and elevated, not brought low and attacked.<\/p>\n

But in Scott and Taylor\u2019s even tones and reassuringly professional manner, there was the hope that those qualities are still in government, and that they, along with the rest of our public institutions, will yet survive this aberration of a president.<\/p>\n

Email John Micek at jmicek@penncapital-star.com<\/a> and follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Ambassador Bill Taylor didn\u2019t exist already, we\u2019d have to invent him. With a made-for-TV voice filled to the brim with gravitas, the West Point grad and career public servant was the living embodiment of everything we hope for from our government employees. Taylor unflappably told Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1316771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 12:56:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1316771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1316771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1316771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1316771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}