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Kristi
Noem epitomizes the incompetence of this White House
Is
there a heart somewhere inside Kristi Noem, underneath all those costumes,
behind all that lacquer? She makes no attempt to show it. Whether killing an
inconvenient dog or slandering Minnesotans gunned down
by federal agents, she picks cruelty over compassion — and, sadly, seems to
equate that choice with strength.
Does
she have a pinch, even a grain, of modesty? She spent tens of millions of
taxpayer dollars on advertisements for, well, Kristi Noem. That seemed to
peeve the president. From his underlings he expects compliments, not
competition. But
another, less colorful trait of Noem’s should have disturbed him — and should
unsettle us — even more, because it’s the root of so much of what’s wrong
with Trump’s White House: an explanation of its dysfunctions, a key to its
disgraces, a signal to the world of how fickle and foolish America has
become. She’s unprofessional.
During
her mercifully terminated stint as the homeland
security secretary, she made extravagant claims without much if any attempt
to ascertain their veracity. She used government resources in questionable
ways. She treated public service as private amusement. That’s not how true professionals
behave. But it’s how many senior officials in the Trump administration do.
And
it’s a big part of my and many other observers’ profound apprehensions about the military
strikes in Iran. We can’t trust that they got the degree of deliberation that
war demands. We can’t assume temperance, reflection, rationality. Those
hallmarks of professionalism aren’t values to which the Trump administration
subscribes.
It’s
a twisted culture, its warp and warts evident not only in the shenanigans at
federal departments that routinely draw scrutiny but also in the melodrama at
those that typically don’t. The inspector general for the Department of
Labor, for example, is investigating allegations of professional misconduct by its leader, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and several of her top
aides. Chavez-DeRemer has been accused of using department resources for
personal trips (something Noem is said to have done, too), having an affair
with a member of her security detail (hold on to that thought), taking
department workers to strip clubs (is this the new morale-building?) and
drinking alcohol on the job.
Oh,
and her husband, Dr. Shawn DeRemer, has been barred from the department’s
offices because at least two women who work there have accused him of sexual
assault (which he has denied).
Wild
as all of that sounds, it’s actually a Trump-administration leitmotif. In
The Wall Street Journal last month, Michelle Hackman, Josh Dawsey and Tarini
Parti wrote that Trump frequently
wondered what was going on between Noem and one of her senior aides, Corey
Lewandowski, who have repeatedly confronted questions about their conspicuous
closeness.
“Lewandowski
and Noem, who are both married, have publicly denied the reports of an
affair, but people said they do little to hide their relationship inside the
department,” The Journal article explained, adding: “The pair have lately
been using a luxury 737 Max jet, with a private cabin in back, for their
travel around the country, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Sounds
comfy. And … familiar. Fancy trips, airborne love, unconventional doings with
the security detail: It’s so very Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, who timed
a recent, government-funded excursion to Italy to coincide with the Winter
Olympics, where he guzzled beer and whooped it up with
the American hockey team after its victory over Canada. On many flights he’s
accompanied by his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, “one of the best-protected
country music singers in the United States,” as my Times colleague Elizabeth
Williamson wrote recently in a triumph
of understatement.
“F.B.I.
tactical agents have ferried her to a resort in Britain before a dinner at
Windsor Castle and to an appointment at a hair salon in Nashville,”
Williamson continued. “Last April, agents in two S.U.V.s stood guard outside
a senior center in Ronald Reagan’s boyhood home of Dixon, Ill., while she
sang for a few dozen young conservatives.” I hope they enjoyed the concert.
There’s
a tendency to talk of Noem, Patel and their perk-minded compatriots as
grifters. The appellation certainly fits. It’s tempting to focus on the
inadequate experience and kooky beliefs of flamboyant strivers — from Robert
F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of
national intelligence — whom Trump has elevated to the top tiers of
government.
But
that obscures and gives short shrift to their fundamental sloppiness,
selfishness, disregard for proper procedure, evasion of accountability. They
simply don’t do their jobs — or at least don’t do them earnestly, maturely
and competently.
That
was clear early on, when the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, used the
messaging app Signal for a group chat that discussed sensitive military
information, then dismissed any complaints about that cavalierly — an adverb
that, when coupled with spitefully, covers about 99 percent of his behavior. It’s
clear when lawyers for the Justice Department — Alina Habba, Lindsey
Halligan, Jeanine Pirro — have their cases thrown out or their appointments
voided. When their boss, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, shows up at a
congressional hearing with a crude cheat sheet filled with puerile insults.
When Patel takes to social media to crow about developments in prominent
investigations that turn out to be dead ends. When a major report released by
a commission under Kennedy cites an array of nonexistent
studies. When he or other members of Trump’s cabinet capriciously fire or
haphazardly hire people for important positions.
I’m
sure these administration officials deem professionalism overrated, outdated,
an enemy of necessary disruption, a brake on real genius. It’s for slowpokes
and prudes. It’s fussiness for fussiness’s sake. Wrong.
Professionalism recognizes that your job is bigger than you are. It rightly
regards teamwork and discipline as handmaidens of accomplishment. It
understands that a sturdy institution requires a code of conduct. And it
sweats details, because if you get enough of those wrong, you get nothing at
all right. |
