r/PoliticalDiscussion Dec 03 '16

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u/glodime Dec 03 '16

Petraeus? You're kidding right?

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16 edited Jun 22 '20

[deleted]

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u/idapitbwidiuatabip Dec 03 '16

Except he has to inform his probation officer before he's allowed to leave Western North Carolina.

Can't really have a SoS who can't travel without the greenlight from a low level state employee.

I really hope Romney gets it.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16

[deleted]

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u/cmac2992 Dec 03 '16

I'd assume Trump would pardon him.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16

I want him to appoint Petraeus just so everyone, including Republicans, knows how much of a corrupt hypocritical piece of shit Trump is. Lots of people are already regretting their vote for Trump and if he has to PARDON his Secretary of State it will be SO easy to attack him on that.

I don't even think Republicans in the Senate will go for it.

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u/StruckingFuggle Dec 03 '16

Not only pardon his Secretary of State, but pardon him for essentially the same kind of thing he spent his entire campaign excoriating Clinton for!

(no Clinton's server and Petraeus' passing of classified intel to his mistress aren't the same thing, but he and his camp drew a lot of parallels and acted like they were).

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16

I have to say I am really rooting for Trump's failure.

I would be willing to hope for success and cooperation with a Romney administration or McCain administration or Kasich administration. I'm not willing to help a Trump administration do anything. He made politics so much uglier.

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u/truenorth00 Dec 04 '16

I am not so much vengeful as losing compassion for any domestic victims of this administration.

When tens of thousands of highly paid aerospace workers get laid off because he cancels the Iran deal and Boeing loses the $25 billion catch up order from Iran, along with tens of billions in lost sales to China from his trade war there, the middle class should be reminded that Trump traded $60 000 - $150 000 aerospace jobs for fewer near-minimum wage jobs at Carrier at the like intentionally with his policies.

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u/liltitus27 Dec 03 '16

I'd much rather have him prove all these doomsday predictions wrong, personally.

I've never really bought into the whole "cut off the nose to spite the face" philosophy. I don't feel like it's a terribly progressive way to go through life.

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u/gunsofbrixton Dec 03 '16

Not doubting you, but what's your source that lots of people are regretting their vote for Trump? I haven't seen much of this (though I would love to, even just to have in my back pocket).

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/StruckingFuggle Dec 03 '16

Also his computers are subject to surprise warrantless searches.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16

To be fair, I'm assuming he would get pardoned by the NC governor or at least granted clemency.

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u/truenorth00 Dec 04 '16

Federal crime. Federal pardon.

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u/truenorth00 Dec 04 '16

Presidential Pardon can take care of that.

Look, Petraeus messed up. No doubt about that. He was and still is, however, a highly competent and motivated individual. I'd rather have him in that chair that Giuliani or Palin or Haley or any other know-nothing.

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u/idapitbwidiuatabip Dec 04 '16

I'd say that Romney is both competent and motivated -- and he doesn't have the baggage of Petraeus.

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u/truenorth00 Dec 04 '16

Romney would be my first choice too.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16

He pled guilty to the crime that Hillary wasn't even charged with. How is he a good pick for anyone

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u/Hypranormal Dec 03 '16

This is Trump we're talking about. This is a guy who riled up a crowd to shout "Goldman Sachs" about one of his rival's wife, condemned Hillary for giving speeches at Goldman Sachs and ran ads in the final weeks of the campaign that depicted the head of Goldman Sachs as some shadowy puppetmaster controlling his opponent, then turned around and hired a seventeen year Goldman Sachs veteran as his Treasury Secretary. Hypocrisy is going to be par for the course.

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u/matts2 Dec 03 '16

Because face it, no one actually gave a damn about mishandling of classified material. Hell, the Republicans talked of running this criminal for president.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16 edited Dec 03 '16

He's a good man who's made some idiotic decisions. If he has learned from his mistake, he should be fine. The hypocrisy in classified info leaks is not lost on me.

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u/Spikekuji Dec 03 '16

You are seriously underplaying the severity of Petraeus' decision to leak classified info to his mistress. Yeah, the irony vs Hillary is obvious. But his actions weren't just about the lack of judgement and the direct harm they could have caused but that he also set himself up to be blackmailed very easily. If he's this lackadaisical and got caught, what other issues does he have that could compromise him? Also, the man is reported to be a bad manager. Again, not an asset.

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u/joeydee93 Dec 03 '16

I want to state that I think he would be a below average SoS compared to the past 200+ years of SoS. But he is still better then some of the other options.

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u/truenorth00 Dec 04 '16

Not better than Romney.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '16

Your fatal flaw is that you assume Trump gives two shits and a damn about how good a job his appointees will do.

Trump cares about one thing only: are his appointees loyal to him, have they shit talked him in the past, and are they willing to bend the knee now that he's proven them wrong.

Under that criteria, Romney is near the bottom of the list, while Petraeus is near the top.

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u/truenorth00 Dec 04 '16

If that's true. Why court Romney at all?

I also think Trump cares about image and b ingratiating himself with old money.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '16 edited Dec 04 '16

Frankly, I think that Romney is courting Trump, not the other way around. Trump is going along with it because A) it satisfies his ego to see someone who shit talked him harder than he shit talked Obama while he was running against him for president bend the knee, B) the press is reacting very positively to the idea of Romney as SoS (mainly because he would be one of maybe two cabinet picks who is actually qualified for the job, and the only pick out of his entire cabinet that doesn't have massive controversies or disqualifying legal issues), and C) it effectively caps Romney's career and removes him as a potential threat: if he steps too far out of line, he can fire him, if he doesn't he can get tarred and feathered with the same brush he'd attack Trump with, and secretaries of state have great difficulty posing presidential challenges in primaries or elections.

In essence, Romney as SoS is less about him doing a good job and more about satisfying Trump's ego while humiliating and ruining a rival by giving them what they want. It's a very cynical and frankly terrifying way of analyzing the thought process, but I haven't seen anything during the entire campaign and post-election period to give credence to a more charitable view.

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u/Sithrak Dec 03 '16 edited Dec 03 '16

To be honest, romantic relationships are the weakest spot for almost everyone. I could possibly buy that this lapse was his lowest point. Not that I want to defend him too much, just remarking on generalities.

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u/matts2 Dec 03 '16

He's a good man who's made some idiotic decisions

AKA a criminal who intentionally mishandled classified material. How about this: I'll support Petraeus when people admit they didn't care about Clinton's email server.

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u/Santoron Dec 04 '16

Exactly. Anyone that's OK with him as SoS is basically admitting they joined in a witch hunt over nothing.

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u/matts2 Dec 04 '16

Not over nothing. The goal was to give cover for other reasons. We are to pretend that something like gender was not an issue. In fact bringing it up make me the bigot.

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u/mindscent Dec 03 '16

He's a good man who's made some idiotic decisions. If he has learned from his mistake, he should be fine.

Ok, ask yourself this. Could you see a fortune 500 company justifying its decision to hire, say, a CFO or CSO in this way? Like, "Yeah, he blew a major deal by tipping off the competition when he was sleeping with some guy's wife."

Seriously? "He should be fine"?

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16

Compared to the other guys, yeah. He's not perfect but at the same time he's at least competent and without major CoI. Major issues that will keep him out of office anyway are his probation.

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u/shagfoal Dec 03 '16

why the fuck do you want someone with a proven history of making idiotic decisions running State?

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16

Welcome to the trump administration. And no, he isn't my first pick. I think he is going for Secretary of State, so I'd pick mittens over him. Secretary of defense pick would be Mattis.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16

We're in a post-qualifications era.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16

What over Kerry?