Winning: Trump's very smart pick for chief of staff
The press and its Deep State allies are all down in the weeds of high school-style politics, their crocodile tears glistening as they lament President Trump's supposed inability to get anyone to serve as his chief of staff. Here's the flavor from Business Insider:
Following multiple rejections this week from candidates who were on his short list – including former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff Nick Ayers – Trump became agitated by the news reports that painted an unflattering picture of what was supposed to be a highly sought-after job, the senior White House official reportedly said.
Vice President Pence's chief of staff, Nick Ayers, didn't want the job. Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie didn't want the job. As if either of those guys would be the right man for the job, what with Ayers's family obligations as the father of little kids, and Christie, well, because he is self-serving Chris Christie. I wouldn't trust the latter with a barge pole in even the shallowest swamp.
Enter Mick Mulvaney, brightest star of the Trump administration, and up till now the chief of the Office of Management and Budget as well as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a man of zero scandals; the competence to run two tough green-eyeshade federal agencies at once, a toughness that can stand up to Deep State; and, most important, the fight in him to crush leftists. Mulvaney and Trump see eye to eye on the issues and know that the economy is Trump's hole in one.
Trump picking this guy is just plain winning.
Here's what we have seen of Mulvaney so far. I checked what I have written about him earlier and the man just stands out.
Here, he's giving senator and fake Indian Elizabeth Warren a taste of her own lefty white-bread cooking on consumer finance and politics.
Here, he's positively barbecuing rabid left-wing economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on a spit over economics, of all things, with this smack-down.
Here, he's effectively shaking sense into the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which had rapidly descended into a shakedown racket under the Obama Nightmare.
Someone like this just plain rocks.
And of course, the left and its media echo chamber are scared.
Here's the Daily Beast digging up old dead cats about something Mulvaney said in the heat of the election two years ago. As if something as ephemeral as that would outweigh Mulvaney's stellar performance and President Trump's delight at his success.
Grow up, bozos. Trump is an adult. So is Mulvaney. The two know it, and now they get along fine.
The remarks are triggering speculation that Mulvaney is in the job only for the short run because he supposedly hates Trump, which is nonsense. I think Mulvaney is keeping his tenure potentially short as acting director because he's one of those green eyeshade guys who loves crunching the numbers more than anything at the Office of Management and Budget. Some people are like that, and Mulvaney has been exceptionally successful at it. Successful people always like to keep doing what they are good at. Mulvaney may be having doubts about whether he can be as effective at the extremely difficult task of serving as President Trump's chief of staff, which will involve doing a lot of people work, including massaging egos and keeping peace, and keeping leaks at bay. And to be fair, Trump probably isn't the easiest guy to work with, given his impulsiveness. But Trump likes and admires talent, he recognizes it well, and he's all about results. That's a bill Mulvaney can handle, given his record.
For us, the American people, it's good that he's not completely resigning his Budget job, given that we want someone hyper-competent in it, as he is. We also want someone like him at CFPB, although that job has already been turned over, hopefully to someone competent. The only thing we worry about is that the talent might not be there in those offices if Mulvaney leaves.
That's a small thing, given that chief of staff is a critical and visible position. We can count ourselves lucky that Mulvaney is doing that job now, serving all of us. Go, Mick!