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What about the ‘water’s edge,’ Mr. Secretary?

The late great Republican U.S. Sen. Arthur Vandenberg coined the maxim that “politics stops at the water’s edge.”

That was his way of saying that in the pursuit of foreign policy, we shouldn’t quibble over partisan matters, that we’re all Americans regardless of political affiliation.

I want to extend that notion a bit farther. Secretaries of state shouldn’t engage in partisan politicking while they are representing U.S. interests abroad, either.

Listen up, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, I’m talking about you!

Pompeo is going to speak to the Republican National Convention tonight while he is in Jerusalem, ostensibly talking to Israeli leaders about this and that … such as crafting a comprehensive Middle East peace.

What the hell is he doing talking to the RNC about a partisan political matter, such as re-electing Donald J. Trump?

I know there’s nothing illegal about what Pompeo will do. Legality, though, doesn’t make it right. Thus, the secretary of state speaking to a partisan convention about a political matter just doesn’t pass the proverbial smell test.

This, I submit, is just one more time-honored tradition that Donald Trump has managed to destroy.

International news

Forget the 'water's edge' stuff about foreign policy

It’s safe to suggest that the time-honored belief that partisanship ended at “the water’s edge” has now been inundated.

House Speaker John Boehner went to Israel this week and declared that the “world is on fire” and that the United States is doing too little to put it out. He offered a blistering critique of U.S. foreign policy while standing in the capital city of one our nation’s staunchest allies.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/boehner-israel-jerusalem-isil-netanyahu-iran-116600.html?hfp=t1_r

It’s a new day. Or perhaps it’s a continuation of an old way of thinking.

I don’t know which it is.

I do know that wherever he is, the late U.S. Sen. Arthur Vandenberg is spinning in his grave.

It was Vandenberg, R-Mich., who criticized politicians for venturing overseas to criticize U.S. policymakers, coining the “water’s edge” definition of bipartisanship.

I’ve always thought it was wise to speak with a single voice, especially when politicians venture abroad to discuss foreign policy matters. Yes, I know that this affinity to blast presidents of the “other party” goes both ways and that Democratic pols have dissed Republican presidents as well as the other way around.

The speaker of the House, though, speaks with forked tongue when he warns of the world going up in flames and then promises to keep speaking out against the president of the United States — even as the world burns.

“I wouldn’t have believed that I would be involved in as much foreign policy as I am today,” Boehner said in Jerusalem. “And it certainly isn’t by choice. It’s just that the world is on fire. And I don’t think enough Americans or enough people in the administration understand how serious the problems that we’re facing in the world are.”

Is the speaker unaware that he well might be fanning those flames when he says such things?