Donald Trump's phone call with Taiwan president risks China's wrath

[Dill]

(12-04-2016, 02:57 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: LMFAO....you honestly don't think there is such a thing as career staffers?  What do you think is so mysterious about it?  LOL I've never seen anyone challenge that concept.
Just to reiterate and drive the point home....LMFAO

I'm sure if we go into the Pentagon or the State Department we will find people who have been working there for decades, across changing administrations. You may call them "career staffers" if you want. I haven't said such people don't exist, just that they aren't the ones who really make policy. They cannot. It's not their job. Are you referring to another group? Perhaps area experts in academia or think tanks? I've asked but you won't say.

No you claim your "staffers" are the ones who "really" make foreign policy, and that foreign policy doesn't change all that much from administration to administration .

When you made that claim, I didn't LMFAO. I offered counter arguments with specific historical examples in support.

Now you could try to refute my claim with a counter examples, just as I gave you examples both of dramatic policy shifts and of presidents (not "staffers") driving those shifts. But you don't do that. You just claim it's "obvious" there are career staffers and they MUST be doing most of the real foreign policy work, plans B,C, and D etc. You added that it would be chaos if foreign policy changed with every administration change. Sure, no one has contended otherwise. But continuity between administrations is not created by "staffers" somehow guiding policy no matter who is in charge. It is created by presidents and cabinets who follow precedent, understand the costs of undermining US credibility, and select where and when change will be in the national interest.

And you see no reason to presume Trump--who promises to blow up treaties and put enemies and allies alike in their place--will be different from any other president; whatever he says won't matter much because "career staffers" do the real work of guiding foreign policy. I believe you once mentioned "checks and balances" which you suppose could contain the guy.

Make unsupported claims.Throw up a straw man (as in a point or argument no one made) when challenged, laugh your ass off, follow up with no evidence, no examples.

Can you break the pattern? Let's see.