A few snippets:
"The guy has nine lives" a former diplomat said of Kennedy, who has spent more than 40 years at the State Department. "Everything just bounces off him."
-- Snip --
He's also able to block initiatives he doesn't like through his mastery of the arcane rules and regulations that govern everyday life at the department - some of which he drafted himself.
“Like Stalin, his power comes from his understanding and control over the bureaucracy,” said a former State Department official.
“In dealing with him or his office, they are always presenting you with rules but you don’t know where they come from: some previous secretary, the president, the Congress and so you don’t know how to figure out what would need to be done to get exceptions,” added the official.
I've never been a fan, but this kind of profile is making me warm up to the U/S for M.
4 comments:
TSB: I love the NATO hacked emails detailing successful efforts to get a war going with Russia without POTUS knowing about it. Thousands died but NATO is pretty unaccountable so who cares? gwb
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/breedlove-network-sought-weapons-deliveries-for-ukraine-a-1104837.html
Congress can abolish his office.
James: 'M' is non-partisan, a workaholic, and a premier survivor. Kind of like J. Edgar Hoover, outlasting Presidents and Attorneys General for decade after decade. He seems to have as many allies as enemies in Congress. If they want to remove him, they'll have to come with Kryptonite.
As I think more about it, my bottom line on U/S for M is that, yeah, he's a hyper micro-managing government lifer, but, he unquestionably does his core job way better than anyone else who ever had it. That's a good trade-off.
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