All-around scuzz-bucket, Mike Pompeo, went off on NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly over the weekend. Aside from a curse fueled off-air tirade, Pompeo also released a statement. That statement is the subject of today’s shade. First, a little background:
The West Point Oath: "A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do."
Mike Pompeo graduated first in his class from West Point, but lasted only 5 years in the army rising to Captain before leaving for the private sector in 1991. In the army, Captain is the highest rank one can attain by automatic promotion. Perhaps, Pompeo’s superiors discovered his view that "politics is a never-ending struggle ... until the Rapture.” and his general unsuitability to command. Maybe, he left because he was never going to be promoted to Colonel.
By 1998 Pompeo had become a wholly owned subsidiary of Bain Capital and Koch Industries. American for Prosperity (aka Koch) bought him a house seat from Kansas in 2010. The campaign highlight was him calling his democratic opponent a “turban-topper.”
It’s not clear exactly when he decided his West Point oath no longer applied to him. It was clearly no longer visible in his rear view mirror by the time he ran for Congress. Skipping over lots of intervening lies, misdeeds and generally unsavory behavior we get to now.
Over the weekend Pompeo got his underwear so bunched that after making a public ass of himself he went on to dig a deeper hole by making an official response. Let’s deconstruct the response.
Pompeo begins, "NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice. First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record,"
This is a lie. @johnlansing says: “Mary Louise Kelly has an email chain with Katie Martin, an aide to the secretary of state, confirming that she would be discussing Ukraine.”
Shorn of projection: “I lie about everything all the time and I get triggered to lie, gaslight and bluster if I get called on it.”
"It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency,"
Shorn of projection: “It is shameful that I continue to violate my West Point oath and the basic rules of human decency.”
“This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President tRump and this Administration."
Shorn of projection: “This is another example of how unhinged I have become in my quest to defend the indefensible actions of President tRump, myself and this Administration.”
"It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity,"
Shorn of projection: “It is no wonder the the American people distrust everyone in our Administration when we so consistently demonstrate our illegal, dishonest, inhuman agenda and our complete lack of integrity.”
"It is worth noting that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine,"
Shorn of projection: “I will try to claim that Mary Louise Kelly could not find Ukraine on a map because I don’t like what she had to say about me yelling at her once we were off air and I no longer had to pretend to be civil.”
The rest of that story as related by Kelly is that Pompeo aides brought her an unmarked map at his direction and asked Kelly to point to Ukraine. She did. Pompeo wants us to believe that Kelly, an international correspondent, a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard, and a holder of a master's degree in European Studies from Cambridge University, misidentified Ukraine as Bangladesh. To quote the very useful words of Emma González, “I call BS.”
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