Swaggering into the sunset

Welp, we are at The Mouse That Roared stage of our political life.

Yesterday, soon-to-be-ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo canceled his final taxpayer-funded junket to Europe because the Foreign Minister of the Duchy of Luxembourg told him he wouldn’t be received.

Over the past week, Pompeo has been trying to buff up his future political prospects with a flock of mendacious tweets on his official government account bragging about his (non-existent) “accomplishments” as secretary. Back when he replaced Tillerson, he decided that the department had lost its “swagger” and announced he would restore it. All last week’s tweets were hashtagged #swagger. Including one that was ludicrous in the extreme:

(There was another one, in which he asseverated that the United States is safer now than it was four years ago; yes, there was.)

Well, yesterday, Luxembourg led the way in telling Pompeo where to go. Luxembourg, the place to register your shell corporation if you don’t want any of that pesky government or tax oversight into your business. The day after the coup attempt on the Capitol, Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn referred to Cadet Bonespurs as a “criminal” and a “political pyromaniac”, so you can understand why he wouldn’t want to pose for a photo op with the pyromaniac’s purveyor of petrol. Leaders of the European Union and NATO, on which Bonespurs and Pompeo have been whizzing for the past few years, also declined to entertain him this week.

So, instead of gripping and grinning across Western Europe, Pompeo says he’s focusing on transition activities. Which, before Luxembourg slammed the door in his face, evidently were meant to perk along nicely without him.

And, on the home front (as it were), the Joint Chiefs of Staff have issued a military-wide memo condemning the Capitol attack and affirming that on 20 January, Joe Biden will be the commander-in-chief, so no shenanigans.

I mean—in a single day, the Secretary of State was sat down by Luxembourg and the heads of the armed forces had to remind everyone in uniform that we are a nation of laws, not thugs.

I cannot tell you how disappointed I am in 2021.