Sex, Fox, and Vaccine-Hate (November 22, 2024)
Welcome to Home & Away. Thank you, Steven Soderbergh for inspiring this week’s title. As for yours truly, I’m just back from three days in London, which ought to have given me some perspective. You be the judge.
Unfit
Timing counts for a lot in life. Not everything, but a lot. So, Thursday morning I did a first draft of this week’s newsletter, writing, “my sense is that Matt Gaetz has a better chance of being investigated by the next Attorney General than becoming the next AG.”
I was more right than I realized, as a few hours later Gaetz was gone, done in by reports of repeated drug use and sex parties with at least one participant under the age of 18 and accompanied by cash payments to any number of the women participating.
The quick demise of Gaetz’s nomination, just a day after he and Vice President-elect JD Vance convened meetings on Capitol Hill to discuss his confirmation, is a welcome development for any number of reasons. To begin with, it means someone as unfit as he most clearly is and who appears to have violated multiple laws will not be the country’s chief law enforcement officer. It also is good that it all happened without formal action by the Senate, which means some senators who might have been reluctant to vote down more than one Trump nominee have kept their powder dry, raising the potential that we’ll see meaningful challenges to the other troubling nominees. One can only hope the president-elect and those around him are beginning to realize that such jobs require serious persons and that the rigor of the vetting must be equal to the scrutiny sure to come.
And one more thing. Yes, I understand that the president-elect and his supporters in the Republican Party control not just the White House but also the Senate, House, and, in effect, the Supreme Court. But that is not the same as having a monopoly over what happens in the political space. Senators are sensitive to their prerogatives—hence the coolness to Trump’s idea of recess appointments. The media and public opinion still very much matter. Checks and balances in the formal sense may be much weakened, but power and influence are still somewhat distributed in and around Washington.
Meanwhile, the nominations keep piling up. Though one may not agree with all of their policy positions, so far there appear to be no dispositive grounds for challenging picks such as Marco Rubio for State, Mike Waltz for NSA, Elise Stefanik for the UN, Howard Lutnick for Commerce, Chris Wright for Energy, Doug Burgum for Interior, and, as best I can tell, Pam Bondi for AG. The president-elect won the election, and the presumption must be that he gets to choose people who support and will implement his agenda. Speaking of which, we’ll see soon enough who ends up getting the nod for Treasury, but the reported frontrunners (Mark Rowan and Kevin Warsh) are both serious, highly qualified individuals. I’d be more than comfortable with either signing dollar bills.
On the other hand, it would be a reach to argue that Pete Hegseth of Fox and Friends (who must also contend with allegations of sexual misconduct) is qualified to take on so big and important a task as running the Defense Department at a time when the United States is indirectly involved in two conflicts and could become directly involved in both, or one in the Asia-Pacific. Linda McMahon may be the best argument yet for abolishing the Department of Education. The choice of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to lead HHS, even if he has the good sense to think Americans ought not to subsist on fast food, is irresponsible given his stance on vaccines and his embrace of other dangerous conspiracies. All three should be rejected, as should Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence. Again, the world is too dangerous a place for a person of such questionable judgment to be in a position of influence. The good news is that none of these nominations is a sure thing as televised hearings that air their shortcomings may have more impact than is anticipated on senators and their constituents.
I can imagine a fitness index, one that would reflect the experience, knowledge, judgment, and character of the nominee, adjusted for the importance of the position. What is to be avoided is putting the patently unqualified in the most important posts. We can—and probably will have no choice but to—live with several undeserving people in less important jobs as there will be a limit to the Senate’s willingness to exercise its constitutional power of advice and consent. In such cases, we will have to hope that Donald Trump’s propensity for firing people comes to manifest itself.
Lame
President Biden has only two months of his presidency remaining, and for that reason alone he is a lame duck, although his physical decline, terrible debate performance, belated decision not to run for re-election, and his vice president’s defeat make him seem even more lame than is the norm.
But even lame ducks can still quack. Biden has already made several decisions to increase the quality and quantity of weapons systems reaching Ukraine as well as to reduce constraints regarding where and how they might be used. Most notably, this past week Biden gave Ukraine the green light to use Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, to strike targets inside Russia for the first time. This is welcome, as only by increasing the cost and pain of the war to Russia is there a chance that Putin will come to consider compromise and accept an interim ceasefire on reasonable terms. The idea that such steps are dangerous as they could lead Putin to escalate ignores the reality that he has already escalated by deploying North Korean soldiers on the battlefield and targeting non-military sites inside Ukraine, both of which are more significant than his one-time use of an intermediate range ballistic missile.
The 46th president might do one additional thing regarding Ukraine before he delivers his farewell address in mid-January. It is late but not too late for him to have a difficult but necessary conversation with President Zelensky about war aims. It is not a decision for Zelensky alone to make, if for no other reason than we are arming him and our ability to keep doing so under a Trump administration will depend in no small part on his embracing objectives that can be met.
Biden ought to urge Zelensky to declare his readiness to accept an interim ceasefire based on the current battlefield lines. Ukraine would not be giving up anything by doing so, as it is not in a position to liberate the 20% of its territory that Russia controls, and it would not be asked to renounce its legal claim to that land. The United States and its European allies would make commitments as to the long-term supply of arms and security guarantees.
Polls now suggest a growing number of Ukrainians would support such a stance as they are drained from over a thousand days of war and want to commence rebuilding their country. Such an agreement would make it more difficult for Trump to throw Ukraine under the bus as it would put pressure on Putin to accept comparable terms and, if he refused, make clear that it was he and not Zelensky who was the impediment to peace. Helping Ukraine survive has been a central element of Joe Biden’s legacy, and it would be both good and fitting for him to take steps while he is still in a position to do so that increased the odds that legacy will outlive his departure.
Last Word
As of now I do not plan to write and circulate Home & Away next week given the Thanksgiving holiday. I figure we all can use the time off. If this holds, the next edition of this newsletter would reach your inbox December 6. Have a good, safe, and meaningful holiday.
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Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens