A Thought on the Impeachment Hearings
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epending on what you saw and who you believe, the opening days of the impeachment hearings were either a bombshell or a dud. With the process in the House predicted to last through the rest of 2019, they’ll be plenty of time to make up minds.
But before these opening days fade away, I want to shine a light on a longstanding, destructive subtext to how America is run…and explain how it was demolished in that hearing room, right before our eyes.
First, a little background.
f you’ve been a Republican or a conservative over the last half century, you’ve both learned and preached one belief above all others: big federal government is the enemy. Ronald Reagan famously said, “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’.” In the George W. Bush years, his radical right-wing advisor Grover Norquist dreamed, “my goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub.” Funny guys.
A thousand GOP officials have painted the same picture of every (non-military) federal government employee as a malignant dolt, wasting taxpayer money and doing more harm than good.
Which has always been a safe rallying cry for them…until William B. Taylor, Jr., sat down at the witness table.
n 1969, Taylor graduated fifth in his class of 800 at West Point. With this stratospheric standing, he pretty much had his choice of desirable military assignments across the country or around the world. Instead, he chose to march into the teeth of the Vietnam War, commanding a rifle company. After taking fire for a year, he was fully eligible to ship back to the States. He chose to stay another six months. He finally left with both a Bronze Star and an Air Medal testifying to his heroism.
At that point, he could have fluidly climbed the ranks of the U.S. military. But instead, he chose to serve his country in other ways:
In the late 70’s, he spearheaded interagency response and planning during the gasoline-rationed energy crisis;
He spent five years in Brussels advising the U.S. Ambassador to NATO;
He spent a decade as an ambassador himself, coordinating aid to Eastern European nations formerly aligned with the Soviet Union;
He left that post to spend two years trying to rebuild the infrastructure of war-torn Afghanistan;
Then, he led a similar effort rebuilding Iraq after the war there;
He was named ambassador to the Ukraine by George W. Bush in 2006, just as the reform-fueled “Orange Revolution” was collapsing, forcibly yielding to Soviet-backed puppets;
Barack Obama then assigned him to oversee U.S. support to nations of the Middle East during the “Arab Spring”;
Finally, he played a key role enforcing sanctions against Russia after their invasion and occupation of part of the Ukraine.
By then, it would be hard to imagine anyone whose service to country more merited a highly honored and satisfying retirement.
Then the phone rang.
he U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, was calling to ask if Taylor would come back and serve as our main diplomat in the Ukraine, following the forced departure of ambassador Maria Yovanovitch. (And she proved herself this week to be a model of probity and patriotism, predisely the type of representative you would want representing your nation to the rest of the world. Precisely.)
A mentor advised Taylor, “if your country asks you to do something, you do it—as long as you can be effective.” He had hope for the new, anti-corruption government elected in the Ukraine…one which would certainly struggle for its footing in the face of renewed Russian interference. He wanted to help.
Pompeo “promised” him that strong U.S. support for Ukraine would continue, so he took the job. But things turned out to be not at all what Pompeo promised. Vital, life-saving aid--already authorized by Congress--was put on hold.
Effectively, Taylor was now working for Donald Trump.
illiam Taylor is a true American hero. He personally smashes any depictions of “all those pointy-headed government officials” that conservatives love to invent. He has been consistent and pivotal and virtuous in everything he’s been asked to do—just like tens of thousands of others who are paid with our tax dollars. They are the people who make America work.
But I wonder if William Taylor sees a sad circle being closed here. After all, he began in the killing fields of Vietnam. Then, during his opening remarks this week, he lamented, “even as we sit here today, Russians are attacking Ukrainian soldiers in their own country, and have been for the last four years I saw this on the frontline last week. The day I was there, a Ukrainian soldier was killed, and four were wounded.”
There he was, a half century on, moving merely from one lethal battlefield to another.
The news cycle will soon forget Bill Taylor.
We should remember.
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