the choice of Mr. Pence, Mr. Trump’s biggest compromise yet with the establishment Republicans he claims to reject.
.. Above all, Mr. Trump’s choice of Mr. Pence is a gesture to Republicans whose money he needs to win, and a move to pacify any conservatives who were scheming to derail his nomination at the convention until they were thwarted by party officials this week. But having the Indiana governor on the ticket does little to convince a struggling middle class that Mr. Trump aims to force the party into its corner... While in Congress, Mr. Pence endorsed the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other trade pacts that Mr. Trump rails about. He voted for the Iraq War, which Mr. Trump says he opposed. A staunch anti-abortion conservative, in 2011 Mr. Pence led House Republicans’ efforts to defund Planned Parenthood ..
The Case for Newt
John Kasich, the popular governor of Ohio, would have been a natural pick but doesn’t want to be in the same room as Trump, let alone on the same ticket.
.. Trump is going to need a wingman who can believe six impossible things before breakfast; who can defend the Muslim travel ban during those times when it is Trump’s position and skate away from it during those times when it’s not; who can take any new controversy of the hour, defend it and explain it away and look forward to the next one with relish; and who won’t ever let personal or philosophical standards get in the way.
.. he is as undisciplined as Bill Clinton, although without the roguish charm; and he’s not going to be liked by anyone who isn’t already a fan. As my colleague Jonah Goldberg points out, Gingrich would be able to defend Trump’s off-the-wall statements, but it’s not clear Trump would be able to defend Gingrich’s.
.. Not only would he defend Trump ably, he would put whatever Trump says in the most impressive light possible. You could shake Gingrich awake at 3 a.m., tell him Trump just came out for nationalizing the banks, and he would rattle off a five-minute riff on how it has always been the policy of the future and the country is lucky to have such a radical agent of change.
.. This wouldn’t ordinarily be a qualification for a VP pick, but Trump is running a media campaign, so he should pick the most compelling, deft media personality on offer, and that’s clearly Gingrich.
.. Besides, if the GOP is committed to a brash, unpredictable and divisive candidate at the top of the ticket, it might as well go all the way. Pick Newt, and let her rip.
Is Flynn Trump’s VP Pick
In a sane world, this sort of thing would spur serious impeachment talk:
President Barack Obama’s former top military intelligence official said Tuesday that the White House ignored reports prefacing the rise of ISIS in 2011 and 2012 because they did not fit their re-election “narrative.”.. Flynn, who has been critical of both Obama and former President George W. Bush’s handling of the Iraq War and involvement in the Middle East, said that Obama was served poorly by a small circle of advisers who were worried about his re-election prospects at the time. The story they needed to tell, he said, was that pulling troops from Iraq would not leave the region vulnerable to rise of a radical Islamic group like ISIS.
“I think the narrative was that al Qaeda was on the run, and (Osama) bin Laden was dead . . . they’re dead and these guys are, we’ve beaten them,” Flynn said, but the problem was that despite how many terrorist leaders they killed they “continue to just multiply.”
Michael Flynn, the retired general on Donald Trump’s VP shortlist, explained
At JSOC, Flynn was tasked with dismantling insurgent networks in Iraq and Afghanistan — an experience that seems to have informed his later view of of jihadists as the greatest and most significant threat America faces.
.. Flynn was often accused of being disruptive, and not in the good Silicon Valley sense of the term. According to the Washington Post, he frequently butted heads with the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Michael Vickers. Vickers wanted the DIA to focus on doing analysis and traditional gathering; Flynn wanted its operatives out in hot spots supporting soldiers on the ground.
.. Implying that the US should level the entire city of Raqqa because ISIS controls it: “If we know that their headquarters exist in a place called Raqqa, Syria, we should eliminate, we should destroy Raqqa, Syria.” (Hugh Hewitt Show)
.. The book, according to Flynn, will highlight the “world war” nature of the flight with radical Islam. It’s coauthored with Michael Ledeen, a conservative writer who said in 2002 that “every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.”
.. On December 10 of last year, Flynn attended a dinner celebrating the tenth anniversary of RT, the cable network formerly called Russia Today. He sat at the head table, with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and had delivered a talk on his view of foreign affairs today beforehand.
.. “Flynn now makes semi-regular appearances on RT as an analyst, in which he often argues that the U.S. and Russia should be working more closely together on issues like fighting [ISIS] and ending Syria’s civil war,”
.. Flynn’s argument takes Russia’s claim that it is fighting “terrorists” in Syria at face value, when in reality Russia’s intervention is aimed at propping up dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
.. But it’s possible that Flynn genuinely doesn’t care that Russia’s real aim is propping up Assad, because he thinks that anyone who’s against ISIS — as Assad is, at least nominally — is worth supporting.
.. And that, I think, would be the ultimate significance of a Flynn pick. Trump would be telling the world what his priorities are — and that they aren’t promoting democracy or opposing an increasingly aggressive Russia.
Instead, Trump would be signaling that he believes he needs to 1) project strength/toughness and 2) take a strong stance against jihadist groups. These objectives would be so important, in his eyes, that he’s willing to embrace someone with questionable ties to a hostile power in order to further them.