Huntsman is back as Russian diplomat, kissing trump's...

[undergroundrr]

I know it's WaPo, but it's a very entertaining read. The second half of the article really heats up:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...0b326e9b69b1406c75d52/?utm_term=.772bf8e94f53

The Daily 202: Jon Huntsman’s strange odyssey to become Donald Trump’s man in Moscow
By James Hohmann March 9 at 10:34 AM


THE BIG IDEA: Donald Trump has blocked several people who opposed him during the campaign from getting jobs in his administration. So why has he reportedly chosen Jon Huntsman to be the U.S. ambassador to Russia?

-- The 56-year-old has earned a reputation as someone who ingratiates himself with his patron of the moment but whose long-term loyalty cannot be counted on. His critics — including some who have worked with him — complain privately that he’s always thinking about how he can climb the next step up the ladder. When his name comes up around this town, one often hears words like craven and opportunistic.

While others from the Republican establishment were signing Never Trump letters last year, Huntsman was singing Trump’s praises. Elise Viebeck reported last October that “the theory in foreign policy circles” was that he “wanted to be secretary of state badly enough he was willing to risk his credibility on Trump.”

But Huntsman seemed to calculate after David Fahrenthold uncovered the 2005 “Access Hollywood” video of Trump boasting about groping women that he could no longer win. So, just weeks before the election, he called on Trump to drop out of the race. “In a campaign cycle that has been nothing but a race to the bottom — at such a critical moment for our nation — and with so many who have tried to be respectful of a record primary vote, the time has come for Governor Pence to lead the ticket,” Huntsman told The Salt Lake Tribune, which is owned by his brother.

After Trump won, though, Huntsman changed his tune again. As the foreign policy firmament fretted about Trump’s phone conversation with the leader of Taiwan, Huntsman surprised many of his old friends by rushing to the president-elect’s defense on Fox News and in the New York Times. He described the move as “shrewd.” It could be a “useful leverage point,” he said. “Having lived in Taiwan twice and having lived in China once, there's a little too much hyperventilating about this one,” Huntsman said on Fox.

-- It’s unclear what strings he might have pulled behind the scenes, but Huntsman was soon floated by transition officials as a potential dark-horse pick for secretary of state. When he got passed over for Rex Tillerson, he stayed in the mix to become deputy secretary of state. Now he’s settled for another foreign posting.

-- The whole Huntsman family has been part of the charm offensive:

Mary Anne, one of the ambassador's daughters, played piano at the White House yesterday:

Abby Huntsman, a co-host of "Fox & Friends Weekend," conducted a softball interview with Sean Spicer last week:

-- Assuming he’s confirmed by the Senate, Hunstman will become a very high-profile figure. Anything Trump does vis-à-vis Russia will be under a microscope by Congress and the media. Michael Flynn’s resignation and Jeff Sessions’s misleading sworn testimony — both related to conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States — underscore the sensitivity of the job he’s taking on. If Trump continues to pursue rapprochement with the Kremlin, suspicions will run very high about his motives, and Huntsman will be called upon to defend the policy as beneficial to the national interest.

-- Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said overnight that he hopes Huntsman will help Trump improve relations. “We will welcome any head of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow who will be a staunch supporter of the idea to establish dialogue between the two countries. We believe that this is the main task of any ambassador in any country," Peskov told the state-sponsored Sputnik news organization.

-- Another person breathing a sigh of relief is Orrin Hatch. There’s been rampant speculation in Utah that Huntsman might challenge the 82-year-old senator for the GOP nomination next year. He won’t be able to do that from Moscow.


HOW HUNTSMAN MADE IT THIS FAR:

-- George H.W. Bush named him ambassador to Singapore when he was just 32, making him the youngest U.S. ambassador in a century. He had helped Bush with fundraising in Utah, and his billionaire father — who previously worked in the Nixon administration — was (and remains) a major GOP donor.

When George W. Bush became president, Huntsman left his family’s business to become deputy U.S. trade representative. Then he returned to Utah to run for governor in 2004. With a growing national profile, he cruised to reelection in 2008.

-- Barack Obama’s White House was worried that he could pose a very strong challenge in 2012. To sideline him, the president appointed Huntsman as ambassador to China. The gambit failed. Huntsman came back to run anyway.

But Huntsman was hobbled by his links to Obama in that campaign, specifically a handwritten love letter he’d sent the then-president in 2009. Praising him as gracious and kind, he wrote: “You are a remarkable leader — and it has been a great honor getting to know you.” He underlined the word remarkable for emphasis.

In another letter, Huntsman effusively praised Hillary Clinton. “I have enormous regard for your experience, sense of history and brilliant analysis of world events,” he wrote Bill Clinton. “I must report that Sec. Clinton has won the hearts and minds of the State Dept. bureaucracy — no easy task. And after watching her in action, I can see why. She is well-read, hard working, personable and has even more charisma than her husband! It’s an honor to work with her.”

-- The portrait of Huntsman in Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s book about the 2012 election was particularly unflattering. Both the candidate and his wife are depicted as especially shallow. Then-White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley called Huntsman in the middle of the night in Beijing after reading a Washington Post story about his campaign-in-waiting while he was still serving as Obama’s ambassador. “This is a pretty s---y way to treat someone who gave you the opportunity of a lifetime,” Daley told him. Huntsman denied The Post’s report, even though he knew it was accurate.


Donald Trump made a show of humiliating Mitt Romney by pretending to consider him for secretary of state. He invited journalists to photograph them eating at Jean Georges restaurant in November. Romney had refused to endorse Trump during the campaign. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
-- Mitt Romney also came to detest Huntsman, a fellow Mormon, after he defected to John McCain ahead of the 2008 primaries. “Your grandfather would be ashamed of you,” Romney told him at the time, according to an account in the Halperin and Heilemann book.

Mitt got sweet revenge four years later by crushing Huntsman like a bug in New Hampshire. Especially meaningful to him was McCain’s endorsement three days before the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation primary. Hunstsman saw this as a betrayal and personally emailed the Arizona senator to complain, noting the price he’d paid in Utah for snubbing a favorite son four years before.


-- Ironically, Huntsman attacked Romney during the 2012 campaign for sucking up to Trump. The former Massachusetts governor schlepped to Trump Tower to seek the businessman’s support in September 2011, following a procession of other candidates that year that included Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich. Huntsman bragged that he didn’t meet with Trump during one of the debates.

Trump, who had flirted with running that year before taking a pass, wanted to play the role of kingmaker. He announced that he would sponsor a debate in Des Moines the week before the Iowa caucuses. Huntsman immediately declared that he would not participate. "We look forward to watching Mitt and Newt suck up to The Donald with a big bowl of popcorn," said Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller.

-- Huntsman claimed that Trump asked him for a meeting, and he declined. Trump responded that Huntsman was the one who tried to meet with him, but that he had not returned Huntsman's calls. The then-reality TV star took several digs at his Mormon faith during the ensuing spat, which became an issue in Utah last fall.

Trump relished and even took credit for Huntsman’s inability to gain traction and, over a period of several months, mocked him on Twitter as an ineffective ambassador to Beijing:

Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Jon Huntsman called to see me. I said no, he gave away our country to China! @JonHuntsman
6:33 PM - 8 Feb 2012
547 547 Retweets 345 345 likes
Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
@JonHuntsman called to set up a meeting. Haven't returned his call.
11:06 AM - 30 Sep 2011
25 25 Retweets 8 8 likes
Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
The lightweight, @JonHuntsman, used my name in a debate for gravitas--it didn't work. Sad!
2:18 PM - 16 Dec 2011
122 122 Retweets 50 50 likes
Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Our diplomats are weak: @JonHuntsman's China policy proves why we need businesmen to negotiate against China.
3:19 PM - 19 Dec 2011
43 43 Retweets 4 4 likes
Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
China did a major number on us during the reign of @JonHuntsman. He was easy pickens!
12:18 PM - 8 Feb 2012
37 37 Retweets 15 15 likes

Asked back then about Trump’s attacks, Huntsman replied on Fox News: "I'm not going to kiss his ring, and I'm not going to kiss any other part of his anatomy."