Daniel W. Drezner writes:

Mike Pompeo came into the secretary of state position with a relatively simple assignment: be better than the most incompetent secretary of state in history. Rex Tillerson tried to ingratiate himself with President Trump and failed. In the process, he alienated every other stakeholder relevant to his job: Congress, the Foreign Service, the foreign diplomatic corps, even folks such as me. He had to go.

There was an argument that Pompeo was stepping into a situation ripe with possibility. At the time, I even told Isaac Chotiner: “Pompeo has the possibility, and let me stress the word possibility, of getting what I call the bad-boyfriend benefit from replacing Tillerson. Tillerson was such a disastrous secretary of state — you can see the evidence in senior people exiting, in the low morale in the remaining bureaucracy. All Pompeo has to do are a couple acts of decency or gestures toward the building.”

As it turns out, Pompeo and decency do not mix. He needs to resign. [Continue reading…]