Sunday, January 26, 2020

Mike Pompeo: A Case Study in "Evangelical Christian" Hypocrisy

Perhaps I am a cynic when it comes to supposed Christians once they enter the realm of politics, especially evangelicals who make great show of wearing their religion on their sleeves even as they grasps for power and throw the gospel message to the gutter. From my experience, whether elected to political office or running allegedly "family values" organizations, no one lies more or is more willing to engage in the personal destruction of others.  Indeed, the Pharisees of the Bible appear down right virtuous and and suffused with kindness in comparison.  Which brings me to loudly self-proclaimed "Christian" Mike Pompeo who could be the poster child for evangelical Christian hypocrisy (Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jr., white supremacist Tony Perkins of FRC are other strong contenders).  In his complete self-prostitution to Donald Trump, Pompeo seemingly has no limit to how low he will go and to the lies he will disseminate.  A column in the Washington Post looks at Pompeo's moral bankruptcy.  Here are excerpts: 
I would like to apologize to Rex Tillerson.  I’m not apologizing for writing that he was “quite possibly the most ineffectual secretary of state since America’s rise to global prominence in 1898.”. . . . But I am apologizing for underestimating his virtues. Now that his successor as secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is verbally assaulting a reporter and refusing to defend a career ambassador from character assassination — and possibly worse — I miss ol’ Rex and his Boy Scout ethos.
Tillerson was the only person with the guts to chew out Trump when the president denounced senior generals as a “bunch of dopes and babies” in a Pentagon meeting. “No, that’s just wrong,” Tillerson is quoted as saying. “Mr. President, you’re totally wrong. None of that is true.”
[A] former senior White House official described Pompeo as “among the most sycophantic and obsequious people around Trump.” That’s saying something, because Trump is surrounded by more servile courtiers than a medieval monarch.
While Tillerson worked to restrain Trump from leaving the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord, Pompeo has been nothing but a smirking cheerleader for the president’s most pugnacious instincts. He is, in fact, the mastermind behind a standoff that has left Iran closer to having a nuclear weapon than when Trump took office.
Pompeo’s rise to preeminence has not served either [Trump] the president or the country well. The secretary of state had a front-row seat to Trump’s efforts to blackmail Ukraine into announcing an investigation of Joe Biden — and he did nothing to stop the unethical actions that have now gotten Trump impeached. Pompeo readily cooperated when Trump’s goon squad, led by Rudolph W. Giuliani, decided that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch had to be ousted so they could carry out what John Bolton called their “drug deal.” Although he later played dumb, Pompeo was a participant in the July 25 phone call in which Trump threatened Yovanovitch (“She’s going to go through some things”) and asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “do us a favor” by investigating Biden. Pompeo refused to come to Yovanovitch’s defense even after the release of text messages showing that one of Giuliani’s confederates, Robert F. Hyde, claimed to have a team surveilling her and even implied that she might be harmed. On Friday, Mary Louise Kelly, the host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” asked Pompeo if he owed Yovanovitch an apology. Pompeo didn’t like that question; he preferred to talk about Iran. He claimed (falsely), “I’ve defended every single person on this team,” and ended the interview. Afterward, Kelly reports, Pompeo “shouted at me for about the same amount of time as the interview itself,” dropping several “f-bombs” along the way. She said the secretary of state demanded, “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?” and had an aide bring a blank map to see if she could point out where it’s located. She says she did. (One wonders if Trump — who reportedly doesn’t know that China and India share a more than 2,000-mile border — could pass the same test.) In any other administration (or, for that matter, any major company), Pompeo would be reprimanded, at the very least, for his abusive behavior. In this administration, his incivility will no doubt win further favor with [Trump] a president who views rudeness as a virtue. Pompeo has become a Trump mini-me who emulates his master in boorishness, bombast, bullying — and dishonesty. Every day that Pompeo stays in office, he makes Tillerson — once seen as the worst secretary of state ever — look better by comparison.

Indeed, Pompeo makes the case as to why evangelical Christians should be barred from public office.  

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