If Democrats love the United States and loathe Donald Trump as much as they claim—and we have no reason to doubt their sincerity in these regards—they ought to express delight and gratitude when the president appoints someone with none of his own odious qualities to a high-level position. Instead, as White House legislative affairs director Marc Short rightly complained in March, they have “weaponized” the nomination process. Led by Chuck Schumer, Senate Democrats now stand foursquare against any Trump nominee, no matter how qualified or moderate or acclaimed that nominee might be.
Nowhere is this more frighteningly true than with Gina Haspel, who has been named to be the first woman to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. Despite his proclivity for nominating wild-card outsiders rather than “deep state” insiders to lead cabinet agencies, despite his extremely prickly relationship with the intelligence community, the president chose an accomplished and well-liked intelligence professional to head the CIA. The choice was made at the behest of former CIA director Mike Pompeo. Michael Hayden, former head of both the CIA and the National Security Agency under George W. Bush, applauds the choice. So does James Clapper, former director of national intelligence under Barack Obama. So does John Brennan, CIA director under Obama and a fierce critic of the current president.
On March 16, we wrote in support of Haspel’s nomination in the face of the media’s frenzied attack on her credibility. Haspel, we noted,
is a career intelligence officer and has served as CIA station chief in locations around the globe, including the crucial London station. Her integrity and skill are unchallenged. She has, moreover, a reputation for impartiality. The capacity to separate one’s political views from one’s duties is crucial in most high-level government work, but particularly in the clandestine services.
Her nomination should not be controversial. Yet Democrats, who can be counted on to praise any female nominee as a female nominee when the nomination is made by a Democratic president, objected to Haspel the moment her name was announced. Rand Paul, to whom we suspect no CIA director would be acceptable who didn’t oppose the CIA’s existence, also pounced. It would be hard to take their harrumphing seriously even if it hadn’t been based on false reports that Haspel had ordered the destruction of videotapes of CIA interrogations and gloated over an al Qaeda detainee.
As we asked when Democrats objected to Pompeo: Who would they rather have? Does CIA director Matt Gaetz sound better to them? How about CIA director Erik Prince? If Democrats have real objections to Haspel, they have an obligation to suggest an alternative likely to be nominated by the president. We’ll stand by while they think about it.
