Of course Dan Coats is out as director of national intelligence. What a clown, what a schmuck, what a no-nothing bureaucratic ignoramus. The man could not have been more wrong in his foreign-policy analyses; thus was he dumped by that stable genius of international affairs.
"Coats … said North Korea was unlikely to give up its nuclear stockpile, Iran was not immediately taking steps to build a nuclear weapon and the Islamic State was still capable of stoking violence in Syria…. Coats [also] argued for a view of Russia as an adversary and pushed for closer cooperation and stronger ties with traditional American allies in Europe, nations that have been the focus of Mr. Trump’s ire….
"Coats took the lead in … presentation[s] of global threats that was at odds with Mr. Trump’s views. The president … called his intelligence chiefs 'passive and naïve.' In an indignant Twitter post, Mr. Trump wrote, 'Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"
And that's the end of old-school, establishment-Republican foreign-policy advice in this wretched administration of antediluvian ideology over brains. Coats' replacement is a right-wing nitwit congressman who attacked Robert Mueller last week in the hearings. A gold star for him.
So from here on out, it's all Joachim von Ribbentrops.