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Shanahan wasn't vetted properly and Shanahan himself shouldn't have considered being nominated (like so many Trump nominees who should have declined). But the Maddow segment just now chortling about a "lurid" scandal is in bad taste. Family tragedies are just that: tragic. /1
I recently took a raft of well-deserved shit for jumping to a conclusion about a homeless father and his children. I shouldn't have done that. So I'm not going to make judgments about Shanahan and his children, either. I wasn't there, and neither were you. /2
Does that mean that he was confirmable? Probably not. What happened to his son and his family wasn't a secret, but if was something he wanted to keep out of the papers, a Cabinet nomination wasn't going to help that. /3
That's where vetting matters, and as usual, this WH screwed up. But when everyone else is reluctant to take these jobs, you don't spend a lot of time on vetting, especially if you have no real intention of confirming anyone or giving them real responsibility anyway. /4x
