Rush Limbaugh has famously described the United Nations as being like the manic bar scene in Star Wars - a comparison I cite at great personal risk as I have never been much of a Star Wars guy.
Whether he likes it or not - and I'm not at all sure he does - Donald Trump has to send someone there to be America's ambassador to the UN, and he has chosen South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to play the role of Han Solo:
The Palmetto State governor accepted the diplomatic position and a formal announcement was expected to be made on Wednesday morning, according to The Washington Post.
Haley is best known nationally for talking state lawmakers into taking down the Confederate Flag from the South Carolina State House grounds after last year’s Charleston church shootings, which killed nine.
Haley, 44, who met with Trump last week in New York, is the daughter of Indian immigrants and the wife of a National Guard member who had been deployed to Afghanistan.
She was at odds with Trump during the primary season.
She gave the GOP response to the State of the Union in January and warned against following “the siren call of the angriest voices,” which was seen as a jab at the billionaire. She also criticized his proposed Muslim travel ban.
We're still hearing talk about Mitt Romney serving as Secretary of State. I wonder if Trump thinks it's a form of punishment to have to be part of America's diplomatic team.
Or maybe Trump really is as magnaimous as some of these actions appear, and he's simply putting aside the hard feelings of the campaign for the sake of being able to govern effectively. It's not as if no president ever reached out to a former rival when putting together his team. It's just that the shots taken at Trump (and by Trump) tended to be a lot more pointed and nasty than we typically hear. By that standard, Haley's criticisms of him were on the mild side.
The more interesting question is just what message Trump would be inclined to bring to the UN with Haley as the messenger. I see no evidence that he's a neocon interventionist, but he seems certain to tilt a lot more toward Israel in Middle East matters than Obama did. And he's surely not going to continue to weakness of Obama vis-a-vis Russia.
Speaking of which: When Trump speaks in congenial terms about Vladimir Putin as a person, a lot of people are confusing that for policy weakness. It's not uncommon at all for two people who have competing interests to nonetheless deal with each other in a cordial manner. Trump has done it in business all his life. Obama talks tough about Russia but never backs it up with action.
Haley will soon be getting a crash course on how Trump views the world, and on what message that will require her to bring to Turtle Bay.
