The West Point Honor Code:
“A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal,
or tolerate those who do.”
*
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has attracted special attention on several fronts. Among them:
– His messy shadow near the center of the Ukraine dirt-for-aid scandal; a parade of officials have testified already about the president’s attempt to extort a foreign government to help him in an election in return for $391 million in military aid; the money had already been approved by both houses of Congress. Internal State Department emails and documents released last month, and recent congressional testimonies in the impeachment inquiry, have tied Pompeo to the unfolding scandal. It’s widely believed that he knows much more about this bribe, attempted or fixed, than he has said;
– His vigorous use of government resources to advocate his Christian faith; he has advertised his speech, “Being a Christian Leader”, atop the State Department’s web site home page and launched the Department’s first faith-based affinity group called GRACE to promote the views of people of faith “and Christians in particular, to the Department and its mission;”
– Recent speculation that he will quit Washington and enter the Kansas Republican primary race to succeed the retiring Pat Roberts in the U.S. Senate.
Pompeo, a California native, graduated West Point in 1986, served five years in the Army (Germany), studied law at Harvard, practiced law in Washington; in 1998 he moved to Wichita, started an aerospace business with three partners (West Point friends) and with backing from the Koch brothers. He ran for Congress as a Tea Party candidate in 2011, and was reelected to a fourth 2-year term when President Trump appointed him head of the CIA in January 2017.
In April 2018, Pompeo became Secretary of State and is now an elusive element, like mercury slipped from a vial, in the toxic Ukraine scandal. Given the specter of a president’s impeachment, Pompeo might wish to flee Washington for the warm embrace of a Republican senate campaign in Kansas.
This is friendly territory for Trump acolytes. Pompeo would join, among other Republicans, such candidates as the vitriolic Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, grand wizard of the bed sheet knights, and Congressman Roger Marshall, known for his robotic recitations of Trump talking points.
These Republicans are not running to succeed Roberts and represent Kansas in Washington. They seek the anointment to indulge Donald Trump. A U.S. Senator from Kansas may represent 2.9 million constituents, but this race is most about catering to someone who lives in Washington. And Florida.
With his seamless record of Trump servitude and the president’s full-throated endorsement on Nov. 22, Pompeo would stand out among front runners in the GOP primary. Wagle, the Senate’s cunning overlord, is allergic to serious scrutiny; Marshall seems a dunce among them, having never suffered an original thought; Kobach, known for his visceral loathing of civil rights in general and voting rights in particular, is known as well for his staggering courtroom incompetence as a lawyer.
Pompeo could rise above them with his Harvard law degree, his high status as a West Point graduate (’86), although now suspected of soiling the Academy’s honor code. Kobach might say he also holds a degree from Harvard, that he studied at Yale and Oxford. This can only darken the reputations of prestigious schools.
For now the Democratic senate candidates, starting with State Sen. Barbara Bollier of Mission Hills, view the Republicans from a distance. It is like watching a controlled burn on parched pasture, fire starters at the mercy of winds that may shift and turn wicked at any moment.
***
The antidote
for what ails
This season of cheer and good tidings may seem more under fire rather than warmed by one.
The antidote in these parts is the seasonal uplift of the arts, visual and performing. In venues large or small, events carry a special pleasure in this community: Artist open houses and a Snowflake Parade (Dec. 7), Painting with Pals and Jultide at Bethany (Dec. 8).
On Sat., Dec. 14, the Lucia Festival, “Freeze Your Brass Off,” and the Old Mill Museum’s Old Fashioned Christmas, an evening succession of half-hour performances at the Swedish Pavilion in Heritage Square. On Sunday, Dec. 15, a 2 p.m. performance of the Smoky Valley String Orchestra at the Sandzén Gallery. And there are Julotta on Christmas morning and Anandag Jul on Dec. 26, both at Bethany Lutheran Church.
No doubt we’ve missed an event or more in this busy schedule. But the idea and the meaning are here to behold and celebrate. We are grateful to all who bring special radiance to our season of light.
