The Leftist State Media is horrified. Here’s the headline from The New York Times:
Among Those Pressing Trump to Weed Out Disloyalty: Clarence Thomas’s Wife
A group led by Ginni Thomas has targeted officials in the administration and lobbied for its own preferred choices. As the president’s distrust in those serving him has grown, so has its sway.
And then there’s this headline from Mediaite’s Reed Richardson:
YIKES: Clarence Thomas’s Wife Advised Trump to Hire Dan Bongino and David Clarke For Government Posts
The Times story says this:
“For the past 18 months, Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, and other conservatives have plied the White House with memos and suggestions about which people to fire — and who should replace them.”
Reed’s Mediaite story says this:
“Conservative activists and external advisers to President Donald Trump, including Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, have been compiling lists of government officials to purge and replace with loyalists, according to new reports.”
Where to begin?
First, the implication here is that because Ginni Thomas is the wife of Justice Thomas there is somehow something wrong with her involvement.
Excuse me? Has Reed Richardson heard of Hillary Clinton? She the wife of the president who took charge of health care reform with no discernible qualifications other than being the wife of the president? Much was made in the day about Hillary’s game-changing role that served notice that just because one was married to a prominent spouse it didn’t mean the wife in question had to take the veil.
Time magazine, in fact, said this of Hillary as her presidential race loomed in 2015:
“Unlike most politicians’ wives throughout the history of America’s male-dominated democracy, Hillary Clinton came to her marriage with a successful and fast-advancing career of her own as an attorney, political activist and advocate for the rights of children. When her husband Bill went into politics in Arkansas she declined to set her own career aside and continued to practice law, flaunting long-established gender norms of the politician’s wife as homemaker and supportive wife-mother.”
So if it was just peachy for the Leftist State Media to celebrate Hillary because she “declined to set her own career aside” and was “flaunting long-established gender norms of the politician’s wife as homemaker and supportive wife-mother” – why can’t Ginni Thomas?
Ginni Thomas is a long and well established, well respected conservative activist. She is precisely the kind of person the Trump White House should be looking to for thoughts on personnel in the Trump administration.
And oh by the way? What is all this upset because the President demands that his appointees must be loyal to his agenda? Jonathan Swan of Axios is quoted in the Mediaite piece this way:
“Since Trump’s Senate acquittal, aides say the president has crossed a psychological line regarding what he calls the ‘Deep State,’” Swan writes, pointing specifically to the return of Trump’s former body man, John McEntee, who has been reportedly tasked with conducting a personnel purge of suspected disloyal officials. “[Trump] feels his government — from Justice to State to Defense to Homeland Security — is filled with ‘snakes.’ He wants them fired and replaced ASAP.”
Hello? There is nothing – say again nothing – unusual about a president rooting out the people in his government who are seen as potentially or actually “disloyal” to the president and his agenda.
There was not a peep of objection when Present-elect Barack Obama fired every single Bush-appointed ambassador or fired some 90 Bush appointees in the Department of Defense. Obama had every right to do so – and every logical reason to believe they would not be loyal to him or his agenda.
This is a recurrent problem for every new president. If anything President Trump was too considerate of those populating his administration who were “career” employees in places like the National Security Council and the Department of Justice.
Ms. Thomas is far from alone in contributing her thoughts on this subject. The news reports name other well-known and well-respected conservative activists advising on the subject – all of whom I know and are indeed exactly the people the Trump administration should be consulting.
But the fact that she is married to Justice Thomas is no more relevant than that Hillary was married to President Clinton. Times, as they say, have changed. Ginni Thomas is indeed breaking the “long-established gender norms of the politician’s wife as homemaker and supportive wife-mother.”
Maybe the New York Times and Mediaite could bring themselves into the 21st century?
