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Herschel Walker is in the news again, and that is always bad for Minnesota Vikings fans of a certain age. Many of us suffer from a post-terrible-trade disorder we developed in the years following the Vikings’ ill-conceived trade for Herschel Walker in October, 1989. That trade with the Dallas Cowboys led to a dynasty in Dallas—three Super Bowl wins in four seasons—but was a disaster for the Vikings, who didn’t have a winning season again until after they traded Walker to the Philadelphia Eagles.
In 2022, when Walker ran against Raphael Warnock to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate, Vikings fans knew that Georgia voters were in danger of making an historically bad trade. On one hand, we wanted to warn them; on the other, we would have been okay with someone taking the mantle of “worst trade for Herschel Walker” from the Vikings’ shoulders. As it turned out, a majority—though not a large one—of Georgia voters in 2022 were smarter than the 1989 Minnesota Vikings.
During that 2022 campaign, North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer said that he thought Walker was a good candidate. Today, Cramer thinks [ [link removed] ] Pete Hegseth is the man of the moment for Secretary of Defense—as long as he stops drinking, which is always easy—and he is downright chummy [ [link removed] ]with Kash Patel, who Cramer thinks is perfectly qualified to be Director of the FBI. After all, Patel plays hockey. Personally, I am not all that confident in Senator Cramer’s judgment, but I will pay him this compliment: Kevin Cramer has been just as good a candidate as Herschel Walker and equally as capable a Senator as Walker would have been.
Donald Trump recently indicated that he will nominate Walker to be U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas. Walker said some wacky things during his Senate campaign and was revealed as a serial impregnater [ [link removed] ] of women to whom he was not married, so he definitely ticks off a couple of items on Trump’s nominee checklist. Item number one on that checklist is, of course, absolute loyalty to Donald Trump over anyone or anything else including the Constitution and the rule of law. Walker will have no problem with that.
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The good news here is that U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas isn’t nearly as powerful a position as Secretary of Defense, Director of the FBI, or starting running back for the Minnesota Vikings. Walker could do some embarrassing things in that job, but he’s unlikely to do a great deal of damage. He would, after all, be surrounded by seasoned, professional Foreign Service Officers. Also, we have not had a U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas since 2011, and there’s a good chance that Walker’s nomination will languish in the same purgatory as those of previous nominees.
The lack of a U.S. Ambassador is hardly unique to our diplomatic mission in the Bahamas. We have over twenty unfilled ambassadorships around the world, many in places more critical to U.S. interests than the Bahamas, and that is not a good thing. Mostly, this is a result of Congress not doing its job. Nominees aren’t voted down, they are just delayed and denied a vote. A single senator can put a hold on a nomination, or the Senate Foreign Relations Committee might simply not get around to it. This is not how the system is supposed to work. Even Herschel Walker deserves a hearing and a vote. I don’t think he’s a great nominee, obviously, but I would rather see him confirmed in a properly working system than have his nomination lost in a Senatorial corn maze.
For a while now, we have had a series of Charge d’Affaires heading U.S. embassies in the Bahamas and elsewhere, and they do a bang-up job. They are experienced State Department diplomats who have paid their dues in sometimes crappy jobs in sometimes austere or dangerous locations around the world. They act as a placeholder until an ambassador arrives. In my opinion, they are an improvement. I am not a fan of the political spoils system that awards big campaign donors or political operatives with cushy Ambassador slots in the kinds of places where Americans dream of vacationing.
If we are going to use ambassadorships as party favors, there should at least be some objective criteria. The experience, character, and demeanor of our ambassadors matters because they represent all of us, and they should represent the best of the American people, not the worst of reality TV. We don’t need splashy ambassadors who make waves; we need steady ambassadors who calm the waters. We need ambassador picks that signal seriousness about foreign policy. The quality of the person we send as a U.S. Ambassador to a country sends a message. Ambassador Herschel Walker probably sends a better message to the Bahamas than Ambassador Charles Kushner does to France. (There was a whole lot of ick in the witness tampering for which Trump pardoned [ [link removed] ] Kushner.)
Now, while I would like to see the nomination and confirmation process for ambassadors fixed, I don’t think Democratic Senators should unilaterally disarm. We know that Republicans would not respond in kind. The only way to fix Senate procedures would be through a statutory rule passed by Congress and signed into law. Senate rules are too easily changed or ignored, and the norms by which the Senate once operated require a level of good faith that no longer exists.
Senator Tommy Tuberville—who found in the Senate something he is even worse at than coaching college football—thinks that because Trump won the election, he should get whomever he wants in his cabinet or in other positions requiring Senate confirmation. That is not how any of this works. The President makes those appointments with the advice and consent [ [link removed] ] of the Senate, and that advice and consent role is an important part of the checks and balances that make America great—or at least protect us from dictatorship.
As for Herschel Walker, if he doesn’t become an ambassador, I would suggest sending him to the Green Bay Packers.
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