Talk:Mike Pompeo/Archive 4

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Archive 4

"In jest" - Transition to the second Trump Administration remark

There have been countless discussions on many pages in which editors have advocated to ignore or not take seriously various statements by Trump and his coterie with the rationale that they were "sarcasm" or said in jest, or otherwise trivial. Unless Reliable Sources tell us that, we as editors do not make such judgments. In the case of Pompeo, he was asked about the urgent matter of his having blocked the transition to the Blinken state department. It was a serious matter of widespread concern, and RS do not laugh it off. It was a curt dismissal of a serious and appropriate inquiry. As to whether the article text needs to be adjusted or even whether the remark needs to be in the article at all, that's a separate question. But let's not as editors make excuses for the statements of experienced public figures when RS make no such excuses. SPECIFICO talk 02:25, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Per MSNBC, “the cabinet secretary was trying to be coy, delivering the line with a smirk -- as if the incumbent president's efforts to delegitimize a national election he lost should somehow be the basis for comedy….” Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:05, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I would be more worried about material in the lead that doesn't square with the body. Whether Pompeo's Nov. 10, 2021 remark was "half in jest or not, he didn't "echo" Trump's I-was-robbed routine. Goodtablemanners (talk) 04:16, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

We know very well that Pompeo only met with Blinken after the failure of the insurrection. Use of the dated December reference for a meeting that never happened at that time is inappropriate. Further, RS extensively document the delay of nearly 2 months in the transition. The "jam packed" is in part referring to the hectic and incomplete cooperation due to Pompeo's having stymied the normal transition. Please adjust your recent edit to reflect NPOV narratives in the weight of RS reports. SPECIFICO talk 14:35, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

User:SPECIFICO, it’s totally normal for State Department transitions to happen mainly among lower officials. Here’s a news report from 10 Jan. 2017: “Speaking at the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Passing the Baton conference, Kerry said he hasn’t met former ExxonMobil chief Rex Tillerson, who as Trump’s secretary of state nominee will testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday morning.”[1] Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:08, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

You are posting a lot of Original Research both on talk pages and in article text. Please stop. I am not going to respond to Original Research and out of context cherrypicked articles, which are the same kind of nonsense that I recall editors rejected before your hiatus. SPECIFICO talk 19:28, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

If you’re going to edit an article about a former Secretary of State, then it helps to have some background knowledge about how the State Department works. And if someone’s nice enough to give you a helpful link in that regard, there’s no need to cover your eyes. I’m not suggesting to put the Kerry-Tillerson info into this BLP, obviously. WP:OR says, “ Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not clearly stated by the sources themselves” (emphasis added). Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:37, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

False timeline in the lead

Anythingyouwant, Pompeo did not go to Harvard Law after West Point, as your edit claimed, he served the obligatory minimum of 5 years in the Army (while getting well-paid) to repay Uncle Sam for financing his college education, including room and board. It's clearly stated and reliably sourced in the Early life and education section. I happen to know because I researched it and cleaned up the "patrolling the Iron Curtain before the fall of the Berlin Wall" hyperbole back in 2018. I also don't see how graduating first in his class is noteworthy in terms of his or anyone's biography, compared to four terms in Congress, CIA director, and secretary of state. General Westmoreland graduated first, too, and the lead of his bio doesn't mention it either. (And West Point would probably prefer not to mention that he went on to a stellar career, sort of.) Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 10:40, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Good catch, thanks. Anythingyouwant (talk) 10:51, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I think saying he graduated first in his class is okay in the lead. The Westmoreland lead is pretty short and skimpy. Longer lead often mention this kind of thing, see William Rehnquist and Byron White, for example. Anythingyouwant (talk) 10:54, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't mind leaving HLR editor out of the lead, although it's an achievement that has gotten into other BLPs, e.g. see Ketanji Brown Jackson. Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:17, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

West Point is an undergraduate program. Rehnquist and White were first in their class at law school, and they went on to become Supreme Court justices. Harvard Law Review: Pompeo was one of a whole bunch of editors, and, again, he didn't stick with the law, he went into business and then into politics. If he had been selected President of the Law Review, like Obama, or Article Editor, like Merrick Garland, that might be worth mentioning. But Garland's lead doesn't, and Obama's lead says that he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, so that's mostly because it's a first of something. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:19, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

There are lots of leads that include first in class as an undergraduate, see, e.g. Henry A. du Pont. It's a big accomplishment whether its undergrad or graduate school. But I won't quibble, thanks again for catching the chronology mistake I made. Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:25, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I also have no objection to your removal of the Senate confirmation votes from the lead. I put in one of them because the other one was there, but removing them both is okay too. I think some trimming can also be done in the last paragraph of the lead. Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:50, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I'll have to read up on that. One big problem is missing completely, that the state department was hollowed out and often sidelined during the tenures of both Tillerson and Pompeo. Career personnel were driven out and either not replaced at all or replaced by unqualified Trump sycophants. The section in the body needs an overhaul first, though, it's kind of buried under an avalanche of seemingly unrelated details, "diary of Mike Pompeo's tenure as Secretary of State". Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:33, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I just noticed that that was one of your NPOV improvements to the lead. Yeah, no, that won't do but body first. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:42, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Best to carry on that discussion up there. Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:56, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

You removed the administration's signature foreign policy achievement from the lead. It was discussed at length in the article body, but somehow without using the words "Abraham Accords". I have fixed that:

“ Pompeo praised the peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), called the Abraham Accords, as an "enormous" step forward on the "right path".[101] On August 27, 2020, Pompeo, after visiting Omani Sultan Haitham bin Tarik Al-Said, concluded a Middle East trip aimed at encouraging Arab countries to follow the UAE's move. According to Hugh Lovatt of the European Council on Foreign Relations, "... the lack of any additional public commitments during Secretary Pompeo's regional tour looks like an anti-climax [and] it is possible that a lack of clarity on the U.S. commitment to deliver F-35s to the UAE could have also played a part in slowing a second wave of normalisation."[102] Pompeo's shuttle diplomacy warmed relations between Israel and other neighboring nations, and soon Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco joined the UAE in signing the Abraham Accords, which became the Trump administration's signature achievement in foreign relations, with both Pompeo and Jared Kushner as architects of the deal.[103][104] ”

It needs to go back into the lead. Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:46, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Just briefly about your last four edits, don't have the time right now to continue with this: Pompeo praising s.th. isn't even noteworthy enough for the body, and the seeming conclusion Pompeo's shuttle diplomacy warmed relations between Israel and other neighboring nations, and soon Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco joined ... isn't from any of the three sources, i.e., it appears to be yours. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:07, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I thought you might say something like that, so I put full supporiting quotations into the footnotes. I didn't put in the stuff about Pompeo "praising", you will see that if you look at the diffs. I will remove that since we agree. Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:10, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Huge revert by SPECIFICO

This series of reverts has no rational basis. Instead of going on and on about all the policies it violates, I’ll just say this: it will be interesting to see how other editors respond. If this kind of edit sticks, then it’s pointless for me to try and use the five pillars to try and improve this BLP. I had hoped the editing of Wikipedia’s political articles had improved over the past four years. It strikes me as more partisan than ever. Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:56, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Once your edits have been challenged by reversion, please establish consensus for them on talk prior to reinsertion of any part of them. SPECIFICO talk 15:03, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I don’t think you are at all persuadable, so I’ll wait and see if any other editors comment. Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:11, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Anythingyouwant, you've made >100 edits to this article and talkpage in the past 5 days or so. Most of your edits to the article have been controversial, disputed, or otherwise questionable. This is immediately after coming off your years-long topic ban from political articles. At a minimum, I would strongly suggest you slow down the pace of editing and make more of an effort to engage with the substance of the concerns about your edits. MastCell ^Talk 17:05, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

My talk page edits have been precisely for that purpose. My last article edit was at 13:40, 30 May 2022‎ and no more are imminent. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:10, 31 May 2022 (UTC)