Buy Pete Hegseth gin and send him home.
We must be rid of the evasive whoremaster man and his goatish disposition.
Secretary of Defense and ex-Fox News host Pete Hegseth promised the Senate that, if confirmed to lead the largest military apparatus in the history of the Earth, he would quit drinking. (At the time, I called his confirmation a “bad thing” that would “damn[] the GOP.”) It follows, then, that any friend he has left who wants the best for him should leave a bottle of gin on his porch, because this dumb motherfucker needs to resign.
NPR reported that the White House is searching for a replacement for Mr. Hegseth—he will be kicked to the curb, eventually, if he cannot find the decency to resign first. The secretary shared attack plans again in a group chat, this time with his brother, wife (whom he, for some reason, brings to meetings with foreign military officials), and personal attorney Tim Parlatore. Worse, he continues to lack discretion about these indiscretions, so the American people are once more uncomfortably aware of the lack of seriousness with which he treats his position.
Hegseth Said to Have Shared Attack Details in Second Signal Chat
While some in the Trump administration might have hoped he would have learned from the first Signalgate that this was inappropriate and quit the bad behavior, they fundamentally failed to understand some basic wisdom: “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” Because Mr. Hegseth took no accountability for sharing attack plans outside of secure channels the first time around, and was then unwilling to acknowledge the mistake he and the rest of the Houthi PC small groupchat had made, it was inevitable he would do it again.
Smirking and saying “But her e-mails” in response to this is a cliché, but I think the underlying sentiment is worth examining. Mr. Hegseth said of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private communications server: “[I]n the intelligence community, if you are using unclassified means, there is the potential for, and likelihood, that foreign governments are targeting those accounts and gathering intelligence from them,” and “[a]ny security professional, military, government or otherwise, would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct and criminally prosecuted for being so reckless with this kind of information.”
I take the lack of interest in Mr. Hegseth’s poor security practice to indicate that either people who condemned Ms. Clinton either never believed her email server was as damaging or risky as they claimed, or they did believe it but are willing to take that risk now. Which is the worse moral failing, exaggerating a danger to win political points, or excusing the same danger to win political points?
(To be clear, my stance has always been that whatever the outcome for Ms. Clinton, the investigation should have led to a rededication to cybersecurity hygiene. It should have become inexcusable, going forward, to share government secrets on personal devices. Alas.)
Nobody could say Mr. Hegseth’s failings were unpredictable. His many points of instability—multiple marriages, infidelity, assault allegations, public drunkenness—were visible and well-documented. Republican senators limited his confirmation hearing to a single round of seven-minute questions, whereas three rounds are the standard. Senate Republicans understood the American people would disapprove of his nomination if he were subjected to more than brief scrutiny, that deeper vetting would expose disqualifying behavior. Worse, those senators knew if they had to listen to the man talk more than the bare minimum, they could not vote in the affirmative with good conscience. As I said in January, “[i]n other words, the GOP designed the ordeal so that a Secretary of Defense could be coronated against their own better judgment.”
Indeed, when Mr. Hegseth’s ex-sister-in-law swore to the Senate that the ex-Fox News host was in the habit of drunkenly terrorizing women, including his ex-wife, and that she had witnessed him “dancing with gin and tonics in each hand and dropping several glasses on the dance floor, making a mess… repeatedly shout[ing] ‘No means yes!’” Republicans sped up the confirmation process so they could get him installed into the office before they could learn anything else as to his character.
Hegseth Ex-Sister-in-Law Tells Senators He Was ‘Abusive’ to Second Wife
New allegations against Pete Hegseth damn the GOP
Mr. Hegseth has responded to criticism by lashing out and firing staff who could be scapegoated. He foolishly thinks that he can “stop leaks” by treating the people around him as disposable. This is erroneous for two reasons: (1) the worst leaker in Mr. Hegseth’s orbit is the Secretary of Defense himself—after all, he is the one who shares attack plans with civilians; and (2) aggrieved staff are the exact sort of people who talk to the press. If you want the public to be unaware of the chaos inside your office, you cannot accomplish that goal by making your office more chaotic and sending people outside and into the public. You need to provide big cash bonuses, pizza parties, Amazon gift cards—whatever it costs to buy silence.
Third Pentagon official implicated in DoD leak probe
On Easter, standing next to horrified and frightened-looking children, Mr. Hegseth ranted: “See, this is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations.” He has made his disdain for the press clear. I suppose he has forgotten that this time last year, he was something of a press himself.
Can anyone, with a straight face, suggest that if the roles were reversed, if former Sec. Def. Lloyd Austin or some other woke liberal leader had their friends and deputies telling the press: “You must help us! This crazy bastard is sharing sensitive information to unqualified parties! The troops are in danger!” that Mr. Hegseth would not promote this to the top of the A block?
Mr. Hegseth also committed the same evasion as he did in his confirmation (“the whoremaster’s evasion,” I have called it) wherein he attributes criticisms of his disgraceful and incompetent conduct to “anonymous smears,” despite those complaints being penned, signed, and published by his colleagues. His friend John Ullyot, for instance, described “the building” as “in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership… a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon.” Yet instead of addressing the concerns raised by this real person who he ostensibly respected enough to help him “stand up and lead the Pentagon public affairs operation,” Mr. Hegseth returns to blaming the Mean Girls for all his problems.
None can say they are surprised. Senator “Cocaine Mitch” McConnell warned when he broke with his party to vote his conscience on Mr. Hegseth’s nomination:
“At the gravest moments, under the weight of this public trust, even the most capable and well-qualified leaders to set foot in the Pentagon have done so with great humility…. Mere desire to be a ‘change agent’ is not enough… [a]nd ‘dust on boots’ fails even to distinguish this nominee from multiple predecessors of the last decade…. Effective management of nearly 3 million military and civilian personnel, an annual budget of nearly $1 trillion, and alliances and partnerships around the world is a daily test with staggering consequences for the security of the American people and our global interests. Mr. Hegseth has failed, as yet, to demonstrate that he will pass this test… did not reckon with [] reality… provided no substantial observations…” and “failed, for that matter, to articulate in any detail a strategic vision.”
To put it plainly: “Mr. Hegseth’s character sucks and he doesn’t know anything.”
Now, of course, Senator Joni Ernst knew this. She had to be threatened to vote for him. Senator Thom Tillis had his concerns, but he disregarded them in deference to the president. Well, they were right the first time, sorry to say. Perhaps they will learn from this to trust their own initial instincts not to give great power to television personalities, instead of letting their loyalty to Mr. Trump, who they know is fallible, override their confidence in their own judgments. Probably not.
The kindest thing anybody could do for Mr. Hegseth is to make sure he has hard liquor in arm’s reach. Once he starts knocking those shots back again, we can expect he will find his way to either the exit or rock bottom. Either way, our nation is saved some trouble if one sloppy drunk does what he does best: take the bottle to the head.