Cruz's National Security adviser's bio: art historian, RedState blogger, researcher for Rumsfeld

[muriel_volestrangler]

plus, of course, national security adviser to Rick Perry....

Victoria Coates’ national security credentials don’t come from years in the military or the government. Her formal background is in the history of the Italian Renaissance, the topic of her University of Pennsylvania doctorate in art history. But given her deep influence on Cruz’s foreign policy thinking, close Cruz supporters say it’s no stretch to imagine her as the nation’s next secretary of state or national security adviser.
...
She found an outlet blogging at RedState under the pseudonym Academic Elephant.
...
Academic Elephant attracted the attention of Donald Rumsfeld, former President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, who was looking for help in writing his memoir. After a brief meeting, she took the job of directing research for the memoir, a project that occupied her for the better of the next five years.

In the fall of 2011, another friend from RedState, Chip Roy, then working for Perry, recommended Coates for the governor’s White House run. With Rumsfeld on her résumé, Roy said, it wasn’t a hard sell.

http://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Cruz-s-foreign-policy-adviser-has-unique-6749688.php

Fuck me, you might think that at least one of having been in the military, worked in diplomacy, academia on the subject of foreign relations or something vaguely related, or for a politician who actually needs you to work with people outside the country (a senator, say) would be needed to be a 'foreign policy adviser'.

But no, an amateur outing in the closed wingnut world of RedState, followed by a few years polishing the turd of Rumsfeld's biography, is all Perry and Cruz thought was needed. Plus expertise on Pompeii.

An example of the incisive thinking of this academic?

Victoria Coates
?@VictoriaCoates

We need to find an alternative job for Donald Trump, who is making some good points. How about Ambassador to the UN? #hiretrump

1:55 PM - 12 Apr 2011

https://twitter.com/VictoriaCoates/status/57789025498566656

[2naSalit]

1. Good grief

I'm starting to get anxious for the aliens to come from outer space to come and make us clean up our act as a species.