WASHINGTON — Mike Waltz, Donald Trump’s choice to serve as his national security adviser, is a brilliant pick. A decorated combat veteran who boasts that his wife served more combat tours than he did, Waltz is the first Green Beret to be elected to Congress.

Rep. Waltz has worked in the Pentagon and at the White House, so he knows the bureaucracies with which he will have to contend.
At a side event during the Republican National Convention this summer, I watched Waltz lay out the national security threat matrix across the globe with a fluency that suggests he’ll need no on-the-job training.
He’s a hawk who appreciates Trump’s reluctance to go to war as well as the president-elect’s commitment to deterring Chinese ambitions and standing with Israel. Waltz won’t weigh down his mission with electric vehicle mandates and DEI mantras.
The position does not require Senate confirmation, although Waltz likely would have snapped up votes on both sides of the aisle. When he gets to work at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., he will be focused on winning the release of seven American hostages in Gaza. He has already met with their families.
When I heard that Trump picked Waltz, I cheered.
I had the opposite reaction to Trump’s Nov. 13 announcement that he had chosen Rep. Matt Gaetz to serve as his attorney general.
It was a choice that stunned Washington, a town that had gotten used to Trump doling out important positions to supporters whose loyalty to Trump exceeded other qualifications. (READ MORE: Trump v. Washington)
When Gaetz announced Thursday that he was withdrawing from consideration for the job, no one was surprised. He was, after all, a controversial pick to be the nation’s top lawman in the midst of an ongoing House Ethics Committee investigation into a host of sexual misconduct allegations, including that the congressman had sex with a 17-year-old girl.
As the New York Times reported:
Since the spring of 2021, the [House] ethics panel had been investigating Mr. Gaetz over a...