{"id":1316980,"date":"2019-11-26T23:16:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T06:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/micek-column-america-first-nope-its-trump-first\/"},"modified":"2019-11-26T23:16:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-27T06:16:00","slug":"micek-column-america-first-nope-its-trump-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/micek-column-america-first-nope-its-trump-first\/","title":{"rendered":"Micek column: America first? Nope, it\u2019s Trump first"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Trump administration\u2019s foreign policy, such as it is, has been described a lot of different ways. But one word that\u2019s never been applied to it is \u201ccoherent.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Israel to Turkey, from Brussels to Beijing, and all points between, President Donald Trump\u2019s White House has careered from one embarrassment to another, leaving world leaders shaking their heads in disbelief or resignation.<\/p>\n

Appearing before the House Intelligence Committee last week, Fiona Hill, in a no-nonsense, entirely English way, crystallized the 45th president\u2019s view of foreign policy: American diplomats are not there to advance the interests of the citizens of the United States of America or to ensure the nation\u2019s security or stature on the global stage.<\/p>\n

No, they\u2019re errand boys out to do the narcissistic chief executive\u2019s personal bidding \u2014 the long-term consequences be damned. That\u2019s the real Trump Doctrine.<\/p>\n

America First? Nope, it\u2019s Trump First and Always.<\/p>\n

Hill drove home that reality in her description of European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who lucked into his position because he\u2019s a wealthy hotelier who gave Trump a sack of cash in 2016 and was rewarded for it.<\/p>\n

Hill said she chastised Sondland in June for not coordinating with her on Ukraine policy. In the ultimate needle scratch, Sondland told Hill he didn\u2019t have to because he was acting at Trump\u2019s behest, even as he briefed Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wasn\u2019t coordinating with us because we weren\u2019t doing the same thing that he was doing,\u201d Hill told the House panel. \u201cHe was being involved in a domestic political errand. And we were being involved in national security foreign policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

An errand boy. That\u2019s the Trump doctrine. American policy exists only to serve the interests of the Dear Leader. Not the worker on the factory floor in Wisconsin who\u2019s wondering where all the manufacturing jobs have gone. And not the farmer in Iowa who\u2019s sweating the fallout from the White House\u2019s misguided trade wars.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written previously that the past two weeks of testimony have represented the triumph of the grown-ups. After three years of unrelenting attacks by the White House on our national institutions, such great patriots as Ambassador William B. Taylor Jr., former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman all stepped up to remind us that there are decent people in government who truly believe in the maxim that politics ends at the water\u2019s edge.<\/p>\n

The same could not be said of the committee\u2019s Republicans, who, providing the clearest evidence yet that they\u2019ve sacrificed patriotism for rank partisanship, responded in the way you\u2019d expect: They attacked the witnesses\u2019 credibility.<\/p>\n

In a week of lows, that behavior plumbed new depths when Republicans attacked Vindman, who had a Purple Heart, earned for taking an improvised explosive device for his country while serving in Iraq, pinned to the chest of his dress uniform.<\/p>\n

Unfathomably, GOP lawmakers implied that the decorated soldier was disloyal because the Ukrainian-born Vindman had thrice been asked by a Ukrainian official to serve as the struggling nation\u2019s defense minister.<\/p>\n

Vindman, who emigrated to the United States with his family when he was 3, told the panel he suspected the official was joking. Nonetheless, he declined \u2014 and reported the behavior to a superior.<\/p>\n

And Trump, not one content to do something merely ham-handed when the truly offensive is available to him, blasted out a tweet attacking Yovanovitch during the middle of her testimony. And, in the doing of it, all but writing an article of impeachment on the House\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n

And then, Sondland, apparently concluding that no amount of money was worth the spectacle he was required to endure, confirmed there was an explicit quid pro quo with Ukraine, and that it came at Trump\u2019s behest.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Newsweek, former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman called Sondland\u2019s testimony a \u201ctipping point,\u201d for Trump, who\u2019s been accused of withholding $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in exchange for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, a likely 2020 re-election rival.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no defense to any of it now, there\u2019s nothing. What\u2019s he going to say, the Devil made me do it? That\u2019s what they\u2019re left with,\u201d Akerman told Newsweek. \u201cThere\u2019s no good defense. There\u2019s no good reason why he did this. It\u2019s purely for personal campaign purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were some \u201cGodfather II\u201d comparisons flying around official Washington this week as pundits stretched for a cinematic metaphor for the Trumpian drama \u2014 which also included the conviction of Roger Stone as a bonus subplot.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a disservice to the Corleone family, who, while fictional, at least had the virtue of ruthless competence. The Trumps, while entirely real, are comically inept, and have the kind of consigliere they deserve in former New York City Mayor turned cable news firebreather Rudy Giuliani.<\/p>\n

The other difference? \u201cThe Godfather Part II\u201d was actually good. With any luck, and no matter what happens with the impeachment drama, we\u2019ll be spared Trump, the sequel.<\/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":"

The Trump administration\u2019s foreign policy, such as it is, has been described a lot of different ways. But one word that\u2019s never been applied to it is \u201ccoherent.\u201d From Israel to Turkey, from Brussels to Beijing, and all points between, President Donald Trump\u2019s White House has careered from one embarrassment to another, leaving world leaders […]<\/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-1316980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 11:32:19","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\/1316980","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=1316980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1316980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1316980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1316980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}