The single most memorable thing I have read during the last few months was a comment about Mike Pompeo’s nose in The New Yorker. The author of the article quoted an anonymous European diplomat calling it “a heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass.” That sounds about right, and it explains how the man keeps his job.
As Secretary of State, Pompeo has obligations to the American people, to Trump, and to the people who work for him. The essence of the problem is that he only acknowledges the second obligation. The others apparently don’t matter to him.
It is clear from this week’s testimony that Pompeo enabled Trump’s self-interested shadow diplomacy, and that morale at the State Department and our standing in the world have plunged as a result. If he had an ounce of integrity, he would resign immediately. In spite of the lessons he supposedly learned about honor and patriotism at West Point, he doesn’t, and he won’t. He’ll just keep trucking on and sucking up to his boss until he sees an exit ramp that appeals to him.
One can only hope he will pay the price for it when he runs for office in Kansas, which seems almost inevitable.