OPINION:
A Joe Biden administration will include Linda Thomas-Greenfield as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, according to various reports.
If true, that means goodbye America First global diplomacy; hello social justice.
It also means a return to Barack Obama days when America was bowing to foreign heads of states, expressing disgust with the concept of American Exceptionalism and practically begging, practically please, please, pretty please begging other nations not to, say, kidnap our sailors and splash their frightened kidnapped faces on billboards for all the haters of America to see.
Thomas-Greenfield is a longtime political player who worked for roughly four years in the State Department as assistant secretary of state for African Affairs, for another four years as an ambassador to Liberia, and most recently, as a member of the Biden transition team. The Donald Trump administration fired her almost immediately in 2017. There’s a reason for that. She’s consummate Washington, D.C., insider — career politician.
And she carries a big social justice stick called Diversity At All Costs.
In Foreign Affairs magazine’s most recent issue, Thomas-Greenfield co-wrote “The Transformation of Diplomacy: How to Save the State Department,” in which she argued: “In Washington, career public servants who worked on controversial issues during the Obama Administration, such as the Iran nuclear negotiations, have been smeared and attacked, their careers derailed.”
Boo. Hoo.
The piece, co-authored with William Burns, another career insider, continued: “To start, the United States needs a top-to-bottom diplomatic surge. The Trump administration’s unilateral diplomatic disarmament is a reminder that it is much easier to break than to build. The country doesn’t have the luxury of waiting for a generational replenishment, marking time as new recruits slowly work their way up the ranks.”
Nope; what’s needed is a return to the days of behind-the-scenes elitist political operatives, pulling the strings of a government that sells out America to foreign entities — right?
That was the always-apologizing-for-America Barack Obama way. The always-apologizing-for-America way Thomas-Greenfield spent her eight years in the Obama administration advancing.
Her main theme now is diversity. Diversity at all costs, diversity before competence even, diversity and putting America back in a subservient place.
“Diversity requires proactive attention by the administration,” she said in a 2017 interview with NPR. “And when we look at what happened at the early stages of this [Trump] administration — when people were encouraged to leave or asked to leave — there were significant numbers of diversity individuals, myself included, who left.”
So?
The Trump administration was never quiet about its intent to root out the careerists in government who used their political positions to a) serve self, not country and b) undercut the goals of the Trump administration. Isn’t that how changes in administrations go? The winner gets to clean house and implement the policies of choice?
Thomas-Greenfield types always see color first, though.
And that doesn’t bear well for America to have a person in position of debating with foreign players the crucial topics of climate change, a nuclear Iran, poverty eradication, Middle East conflicts, Israel and, of late, the coronavirus — who cares more about hiring the right skin-colored policy assistant than standing strong for American principles.
But here’s the real eye-opener on what would come with Thomas-Greenfield at the U.S.-U.N. helm. She said, in Foreign Policy: “The contours of a new agenda for diplomatic reform have to flow from a sensible reinvention of the United States’ role in the world. … U.S. diplomacy has to accept [this] country’s diminished, but still pivotal, role in global affairs. It has to apply greater restraint and discipline; it must develop a greater awareness of the United States’ position and more humility about the wilting power of the American example.”
Make way for the return of the Obama apology tours. Make way for the public shaming of America.
Any U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who speaks about the weakness of America and the need to humble this country before world powers has no business representing the United States. America deserves better.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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