Victor Davis Hanson
Tulsi Gabbard/Director of National Intelligence
Here in no special order are a few of Trump’s most controversial appointments for high cabinet positions. Let’s start with Tulsi Gabbard, but with a warning: for each appointment, I will try to determine the existing bar for such a selection as established by either Barack Obama or Joe Biden, who respectively preceded and succeeded Donald Trump’s first term.
Gabbard was a four-term congresswoman from Hawaii, with 17 years of service in the Hawaii National Guard (reaching colonel status). She served a year attached to a medical unit in a combat theater in Iraq.
Tulsi has done podcasts and television, was vice chair of the DNC, and an outspoken Democratic voice that criticized the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations for not dealing seriously enough with Islamic terrorism, while becoming bogged down in optional wars in the no-win Middle East.
Gabbard endorsed Bernie Sanders and slowly became disenchanted with Democrats, a change of heart that led her to switch to the Republicans in 2024 when she also endorsed Donald Trump. Her critics point out that she has gone from the Sanders socialist hard left to the MAGA right and quite quickly so.
Why did Trump select Gabbard who had no traditional intelligence expertise to be Director of National Intelligence?
She fulfilled all three of his apparent requirements, which are applied to all his political appointments. One, she has been a victim of the very forces she will head, given she was unjustly put on a no-fly terrorist watch list purportedly for what Hillary Clinton once slurred her as “a favorite of the Russians.”
So, she will have a personal stake and zeal in redressing intelligence abuses.
Two, she will advance the MAGA agenda not as a destroyer of government (as alleged) but as a reformer, devoted to rebooting agencies to their original mission and apolitical conduct.
So as Director of National Intelligence, Gabbard, let us hope, will focus on two of her past thematic concerns: 1) she will ensure the government does not unlawfully spy on or seek to harm innocent American citizens, and 2) she will prioritize the two great threats abroad to U.S. security, radical Islamism, now most prominently manifested from Tehran, and an imperialistic China.
And three, she drives the deep-state/woke/DEI/leftwing/bicoastal elite nuts—given she has not served in the intelligence bureaus, and so supposedly lacks the “expertise” and “experience” to rein in hundreds of “intelligence authorities” with far greater knowledge of how the American spy industry works, or how intelligence reports are read and digested.
The administrative state hates “amateurs,” especially young, vibrant, and charismatic ones like Tulsi Gabbard.
So, consider this quote found in Defense One: “Tulsi’s history of irresponsibly promoting misinformation and giving comfort to some of America’s most aggressive adversaries is counter to the values of the intelligence community. If confirmed, she’ll have a steep hill to climb to earn the trust and respect of the community,” the official told Defense One.
But what exactly are the “values of the intelligence community”?
No one knows how Gabbard will perform. But as a four-time elected federal official, soldier, administrator of the DNC, and experienced campaigner, she surely will be able to ensure her subordinates do not weaponize the information they collect, tell the truth, and especially do not illegally hound political enemies.
So, let’s compare her candidacy with past intelligence grandees.
Take James Clapper, the Obama Director of National Intelligence…
(To be continued)
Discussion (8)
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I have heard her talk on various podcasts. She seems very level-headed and serious. She seems to have had the same convictions throughout her career and has suffered greatly for standing her ground. Gabbard has substantial military and Government experience. With that, she migrated from the left to the right as did Ronald Reagan. I think she will be great.
Tulsi Gabbard has experience in a lot of areas she'll be able to use in her new post. She's smart, and her common sense will fill in the blanks. You won't have to doubt her ability or experience.
DRANO is a recommended product to unclog drains. Tulsi is an excellent choice to "unclog" the elite corrupt bureaucracy of the US Intelligence Agency. "Experience" be damned. She is a dedicated veteran who steadfastly defends our great country.
I have serous doubts about her ability to gain the knowledge required to manage this function of government.
Rule by experts is a foundation stone of progressivism. We are watching the war against that worldview in real time.
It's interesting comparing Dr. Hanson's comments regarding Tulsi Gabbard with those of the Wall Street Journals editorial board in yesterdays edition. Time will tell..
Abraham Lincoln was initially considered a backwoods rube from Illinois by the Washington- New York elite of the time. Arrogance makes a person with normal vision blind.
I think that by now most of us are sick and tired of those in government with "expertise" and so-called "experience". Experience in what - graft, corruption, lying? No thanks. How about the "experts" who gave us the disastrous and authoritarian covid response. Bah, humbug.