Color me disappointed.
I knew when I wrote a post complimenting the president for his choice of John Ratcliffe for the position of Director of National Intelligence that the long knives of the Deep State would be out for outsider Ratcliffe, but I had hope the Republicans would rally to this great candidate and shepherd him to confirmation.
Alas, the Republicans as usual showed no spine, and President Trump has therefore allowed Ratcliffe to withdraw his nomination, just a few days after it was proposed.
The general reporting is that Ratcliffe didn’t have the proper background to be Director of National Intelligence, but that to me is why he was a perfect pick. Ratcliffe has been an adamant defender of President Trump against the Deep State Coup led by Obama’s CIA director John Brennan, his FBI director James Comey and his own Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. If those are the model for the kind of person who Republicans think should be in charge of our nation’s intelligence agencies, then we are in deep trouble.
Unfortunately for Ratcliffe, his national profile rose incrementally when he was one of the sharpest questioners of Robert Mueller during the special counsel’s disastrous testimony before the House last month. That made his appointment easy to attack as “political,” not that Democrats need a reason to attack Trump of his appointments.
Ratcliffe stepped down to move the process along. Here’s his statement:
“I do not wish for a national security and intelligence debate surrounding my confirmation, however untrue, to become a purely political and partisan issue. The country we all love deserves that it be treated as an American issue. Accordingly, I have asked the President to nominate someone other than me for this position.”
The problem is that anyone the president nominates who will be easily confirmed is probably the worst person for the job — along the lines of Dan Coats, the current holder of the position, who has been huge disappointment and a willing enabler of the Deep State apparatus to oppose our president at every step of the way. I am sure the intelligence apparatus is already plotting how to get “their own man (or woman)” in the job.
Hopefully, Ratcliffe will continue to be an effective member of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees and will bring justice to the conspirators working against both him and the president.
Frank Miele writes from Kalispell, Montana, at www.HeartlandDiaryUSA.com and is a columnist at Real Clear Politics. My new book is “The Media Matrix: What If Everything You Know Is Fake.” To support my work, please consider buying “The Media Matrix” or my “Why We Needed Trump” trilogy, which documents the downward spiral of the USA before Trump arrived on the scene. The books are available at Amazon in paperback or Kindle editions. Go here for a free sample:https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/sitb/B07PDQBJM4
