Well this is certainly great news! Mattis has now withdrawn his Muslim-Brotherhood sycophant from nomination to the Undersecretary of Policy:
WASHINGTON POST – Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has withdrawn retired senior diplomat Anne W. Patterson as his choice for undersecretary for policy after the White House indicated unwillingness to fight what it said would be a battle for Senate confirmation.
U.S. officials said that two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), were strongly opposed to Patterson’s nomination because she served as U.S. ambassador to Egypt from 2011 to 2013, a time when the Obama administration supported an elected government with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood that was ultimately overthrown by the Egyptian military.
The withdrawal leaves Mattis with a still-empty bench of Trump-appointed senior officials, a situation that stretches across the administration as Cabinet secretaries have not chosen, or the White House has not approved, nominees. Although Obama administration holdovers remain in a few jobs, after eight weeks in office, President Trump has not nominated a single high official under Cabinet rank in the Defense or State departments.
Notice in the second paragraph who was “strongly opposed” to Patterson: Cotton and Cruz!
What’s interesting about this is that up to this point we were hearing that the opposition was coming from inside the Trump administration. Now it’s Cruz and Cotton?
I think Mattis and Trump didn’t want to make it look like there was disagreement in their ranks, so they cited Cotton and Cruz as the ones who would hold this up. I’m not suggesting it isn’t true, but I think there’s probably more to this story than meets the eye.
In any event, who cares. He withdrew her and that’s what really matters.