February 8, 2025

Did Mr Smith Go to Washington

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 30 November 2024
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column Founded 1932
              Did Mr. Smith go to Washington
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
WASHINGTON – Where is Mister Smith when we need him? We are yearning for the courageous, principled, and idealistic senator portrayed by Jimmy Stewart in the 1939 movie, “Mister Smith goes to Washington.” A lighthearted political satire, it tells the story of a political neophyte appointed to the Senate who stands up to the corrupt machine politics of the time and does the right thing.
The movie is among the first 25 films selected by the Library of Congress for preservation because of its cultural and historical significance.
Its relevance for today is whether there are any Republican Mister Smiths in the Senate GOP willing to challenge President-elect Trump’s Cabinet picks. Or are GOP senators nothing more than Trump toadies willing to rubberstamp whomever Trump wants even if they are not qualified by commonly accepted standards.
The GOP took a first promising step when incoming Majority Leader John Thune and outgoing Minority leader, Mitch McConnell, shut down Trump’s call for the Senate to wave through all his appointments with a constitutional maneuver never used in the modern age to confirm them all as recess appointments. “We’re not doing that,” McConnell said. End of story.
The first to fall was Matt Gaetz, a nominee with so much baggage that at any other time, he would not have been elected to the House let alone nominated to the Cabinet. When it was clear he did not have the votes, he withdrew his name, prompting speculation that his loss would help the remaining get confirmed, that Republican senators would not defy Trump with additional rejections.
That remains to be seen as the spotlight moves to Capitol Hill and on the senators seen as most likely to reject Trump’s most problematic nominees.
It will take four Republican defectors to defeat a nominee. Start with the usual suspects, Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski. Add McConnell, an institutionalist who loathes Trump, Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment, and John Curtis, new senator from Utah who spoke out against the Gaetz nomination before many others did.
Will these senators do their job, and will others follow?
Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump’s second try for an AG, is an election denier. That should disqualify her on its face. She says 60 court rulings were wrong about the 2020 election. Next to Gaetz, she is a legal eagle. But if she makes it to confirmation hearings, she will be grilled about her stated intention to use the Justice Department to seek retribution for Trump.
Fox News personality Pete Hegseth is another questionable pick. He has never managed anything of any importance, yet Trump wants to make him Secretary of Defense. He is on the record (including from his own mother) disparaging women, especially women serving in the military as “a distraction,” questioning their ability to serve in combat. If he makes it to confirmation hearings, Democrat Tammy Duckworth will be among the questioners. She lost her legs when the helicopter she was piloting was shot down.
Trump’s Cabinet picks are notable for their media savvy, some like Hegseth, a Fox News celebrity, and others like Bondi, frequent guests on the conservative network.
In any other Cabinet than Trump’s, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem would not emerge as the frontrunner to lead the Department of Homeland Security. She has no qualifications in the field.
Then there is Tulsi Gabbard, a political changeling who never managed anything and has dubious connections. Her travels to Syria and Russia raised enough alarm bells that she was on a government watch list.
Trump was elected as the candidate for change. The senators serving this country have a responsibility to weigh what that change looks like, and like the fictional Mister Smith did all those decades ago, do what is right.
 
See Eleanor Clift’s book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
          Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
          © 2024 U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
          Distributed by U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND

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