STATE OF FRIDAY: Kimberly Guilfoyle And The Death Of The Diplomat

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Hello everyone,

Welcome to State of the Day,

I know you saw the reports; can we bring some decency back to diplomacy?

Kimberly Guilfoyle And The Death Of The Diplomat

Kimberly Guilfoyle has never portrayed herself as the epitome of diplomatic restraint, nor could she. But after a Wall Street Journal investigation reported that she was soliciting money through back channels shortly before her confirmation hearing, the caricature of Guilfoyle as all beauty, no brains suddenly looked a lot less like a caricature.

The Journal’s reporting painted a fascinatingly frightening picture of the woman now serving as the United States ambassador to Greece. According to the Journal, Guilfoyle allegedly pressured Trump donor Eric Deters to pay off her six-figure AmEx bill while offering to help him with legal and tax troubles through her political connections.

And that’s before we get to separate reports of getting wasted at 4 a.m. and berating staffers for… more ice? She reportedly demoted a member of her security detail the following day over his failure to produce the much-needed cubes. Other drivers were allegedly demoted because she didn’t like the way they made left turns.

Guilfoyle has disputed the authenticity of the messages reported by the Journal. But the allegations, to be generous, raise questions about her judgment.

It would be easy to spend an entire column marveling at the absurdity of it all. And there’s a fair argument to be made that Guilfoyle is unfit for the position she holds — or perhaps any position requiring a modicum of judgment and responsibility, or, at the very least, Kristi Noem’d, that is to say, hidden inside a dark, damp closet somewhere in the State Department.

But that’s not the real grievance here.

The more concerning, and less comedic, part of the Guilfoyle saga is what it says about the declining standards we have for the people we send overseas to represent the United States.

American ambassadorships have always had a political component. Presidents have long rewarded wealthy donors, loyal supporters, and their personal friends with posts abroad. Some turned out to be incredible diplomats, while others treated their “job” more like an extended vacation.

But just because a job is political doesn’t mean it has to be unserious.

The expectation is that a diplomat is polished, discreet, and formidable — someone with enough cultural fluency to navigate a foreign capital, enough intelligence to understand the interests of the country they represent, and enough self-control to know that every interaction could reflect back on the United States.

Ideally, we’re sending the best people our country has to offer on the rather important mission of keeping foreign governments cooperative while advancing American interests abroad.

An ambassador does not simply carry out the president’s foreign policy from inside the walls of a fluorescently lit cubicle. They are, in many ways, the face of the United States across the globe.

That requires something increasingly unfashionable in American politics: calculated restraint.

Guilfoyle’s alleged behavior is troubling not solely because she’s made herself a national embarrassment, but because it reflects a growing willingness to treat an ambassador first and foremost as a political personality, with the responsibility of representing the United States abroad reduced to an afterthought.

We do not send ambassadors overseas simply to play footsie with foreign governments; they are there to advance American interests. But doing that effectively requires the kind of credibility, judgment, and personal discipline that cannot be bought with a title, money, or a made-for-TV appearance.

An ambassador can be a political personality and still be an excellent diplomat. The two are not mutually exclusive. What should be unacceptable is the idea that diplomacy itself no longer requires being diplomatic.

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