The unusual process for staffing the White House

Up Pompeo

THE drama in the average congressional committee hearing makes Samuel Beckett’s plays look like fast-paced thrillers. But the afternoon session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 23rd contained a genuinely exciting reversal. Reporters were prepared for the committee to deliver a historic rebuke and vote to recommend that Mike Pompeo should not be confirmed as secretary of state, something that has never happened before. Republicans hold a one-seat majority on the committee; Rand Paul...