MR. SECRETARY

MR. SECRETARY

I'm running for Secretary of State.  

I'm not qualified.  But Trump isn't qualified to be President and Rudy isn't qualified to be Secretary of State.

So let's not get picky.  

I understand one does not usually "campaign" for an appointive Cabinet position.  But I have also noticed that all of the cable news stations have been breathlessly reporting on who the "front runners" are for State.

And Trump himself keeps parading his potential nominees before the cameras, their hats in hand as His Hairness assumes the throne and gives his thumbs up.

So it looks like a campaign.  

Plus, there have been no exhaustive analyses of each "candidate's" positions .  Just the de riguer ten seconds where the stand ups outside Tower of Trump -- or the golf course -- tell us whether so and so supported Trump or hates him. 

So not only does it look like a campaign.

It also looks like a Trump campaign. 

I have analyzed all the candidates and am pretty certain I can beat them.

First, like Rudy, I have foreign policy experience.  Rudy's comes from walking north on Church Street in New York City  on 9/11 after the towers fell.  I too walked that day, in New York City, north from near my office downtown to Grand Central Station to go home after the towers fell.  

It wasn't on Church Street.  

It was on Broadway.  

But they are parallel.

Rudy claims he has security experience, also because of 9/11.  Far as I can tell, however, his only experience was locating the City's Office of Emergency Management in Tower 7 over the objections of security experts who knew  the site was a terrorist  target on account of the fact that it already had been.

So, Rudy's security experience is more or less of the boneheaded variety.

Me too.

Before my walk on 9/11, I made the foolish decision to actually take the subway downtown knowing at least one tower had been attacked. The train stopped between Brooklyn Bridge and Fulton Street for over a half hour, and then reversed itself back to Brooklyn Bridge. When I left the station, the gray ball was moving toward me as hundreds of people ran away from it. 

Anyway, the Judge I once worked for called me his "stupidest law clerk on 9/11" on account of that decision.

Yeah, sure, Your Honor.  

But I bet you never thought I'd be competing against Rudy for State.

Second, like Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman and Robert Gates, three other mentionees, I can't stand Trump.  I criticized him non-stop during the Presidential campaign.  Thought he was a con, charlatan, totally unqualified to be Commander in Chief.  Of the ten blogposts I wrote about the campaign, all of them went negative on Trump. 

Like Gates, I also voted for Hillary.  

Romney and Huntsman probably left the ballot blank or wrote in some other Republicans.

What chickens!

Third, like General Petraeus, I have made mistakes and learned from them.  True, my mistakes have not involved criminal violations of the Espionage Act.  But I am younger than Petraeus and was a Hillary supporter.  So once at State, who knows what trouble I can get myself into.  I mean, according to Trump, Hillary out-Petraeused Petraeus.

Fourth, I know more people from Taiwan than PEOTUS.  

While I'm on the subject, as we all know, PEOTUS is an acronym that stands for President-elect of the United States.  It's a take-off on POTUS, the acronym for President of the United States.  Anyway, how is PEOTUS pronounced?  Is it "Pee-oh-tus"?  If so, that sounds mildly obscene.  

Which, in this unique case, is perfectly appropriate.

Anyway, back to Taiwan.

Pee-oh-tus should know that I know lots more Taiwanese than he does.  It looks to me like he knows one -- the President of Taiwan. He says she called him yesterday to congratulate him, a call that has now caused quite a kerfluffle.  Everyone at Foggy Bottom is worried that Trump is flying blind and has no idea how upset this makes the other Chinese, you know, the ones with nukes.

I can help here.  I know at least a dozen  Taiwanese.  For ten years I worked with a Taiwanese lawyer and represented Taiwanese clients. And they're probably people Beijing won't mind Trump talking to.

Also,  just so you know Donald, I've never been to China. And haven't borrowed any money from the Bank of China.

Never even used one of their ATMs.

Finally, I have met John Bolton and Kellyanne Conway.  They were both at a dinner I em-ceed honoring that Judge I worked for, who is friends with Bolton and once hired Conway's husband. 

I am certain they laughed at all my jokes that night. 

So, whaddaya say Mr. Pee-oh-tus?

Did I mention I grew up on the streets of Brooklyn . . .

Before Hillary ruined them.