Good-bye Nikki, we hardly had time to know ye. Truth be told, I first met Governor Haley at a Red State Gathering in Austin in 2011, and she spoke at a couple of Bay Area Republican events as a guest of now Republican National Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon a year or two later. She was smart, soft-spoken, full of accomplishments, and politely ambitious. That was before she burnished her national reputation by taking down the Confederate flag at the capital in Columbia, and by appointing Congressman Tim Scott to replace Jim Demint in the US Senate. And long before she joined the tumultous Trump administration as Ambassador to the United Nations.
Haley had a very difficult job at the UN, representing a president who is highly unpopular with the domestic and international foreign policy establishment. She worked with a Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, who had no government experience and who had a mission of dismantling the State Department. She worked with a difficult series of National Security Advisors - Lt General Michael Flynn; Lt General HR McMaster; John Bolton. She was required to defend policies which were internationally unpopular - withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords; scrapping of the Iranian nuclear agreement; withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership. International trade policy is largely managed elsewhere, but the background of conflict with friends and foes alike has made the United Nations job more difficult. She had to deal with an antagonistic liberal press eager to criticize her for issues as large as supporting the president, and as small as installing expensive curtains in her office - which were ordered during the Obama administration.
Haley elevated the stature of the office. Despite her opposition to Donald Trump during the Republican primaries, she had direct access to the president and helped to formulate as well as to implement foreign policy. She demanded and received a seat in the cabinet - a stature generally granted, but not by either of the Bush presidents, and opposed by John Bolton. She played a key role in convincing Russia and China to institute sanctions which drove Kim Jong Un to negotiations. While leading efforts to maintain sanctions on Russia for their behavior in Ukraine, she was a consistant advocate for a Syria policy which would protect anti-Assad elements, and highlight Russian misbehavior. She has calmed the waters following the decision to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, enhancing a relationship with Jarred Kushner and Ivanka in the bargain.
The theatrics of the resignation were well orchestrated - plaudits all around; defusing thoughts of any incident by disclosing that the decision was discussed months ago; disavowing any intention to run for office in 2020; displaying apparent sincerity of a wish to spend more time with her teenage children. With voters approving her job as UN ambassador by 63 to 17 percent (55% among Democrats), her ability to remain in Trump's good graces while occasionally challenging him, and the Republican need for a young, accomplished, conservative woman, she will not be on the bench for long. Governor? - been there; Senate? - two seats filled by capable youngish conservatives; vice president? - now that's something that candidate Trump will need in 2020. (Sorry Mike.)
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This week's bonus is a compelling advertisement of Fresno California Republican House candidate Elizabeth Heng - the daughter of Cambodian immigrants - which was originally banned on Facebook.
bill bowen - 10.12.18
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