You have to love the irony of hiring two people to run the Department of Government Efficiency. You don’t have to love the notion of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy running anything, let alone a new Cabinet-level agency dedicated to the continued demolition of the administrative functions of the national government. But, really, now, I think the first thing these guys should do to make the government more efficient is fire each other.
Otherwise, Tuesday was Military Appreciation Day at the Bedlam Hiring Fair. Having already proposed a puppy killer for Homeland Security, a Jesus freak for ambassador to Israel, and a soulless replicant for secretary of state, the president-elect turned his attention to the Pentagon and his effort to Milley-proof the military establishment. First of all, he has proposed his own personal Star Chamber to “review the qualifications” of current senior ranking military officers. From The Wall Street Journal:
The Trump transition team is considering a draft executive order that establishes a “warrior board” of retired senior military personnel with the power to review three- and four-star officers and to recommend removals of any deemed unfit for leadership. If Donald Trump approves the order, it could fast-track the removal of generals and admirals found to be “lacking in requisite leadership qualities,” according to a draft of the order reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. But it could also create a chilling effect on top military officers, given the president-elect’s past vow to fire “woke generals,” referring to officers seen as promoting diversity in the ranks at the expense of military readiness.
You don’t have to be a Clausewitz to see where this is heading. A board made up of Trump hirelings of the Michael Flynn variety (if not Flynn himself, because you know the president-elect wants to do it) will be passing judgment on the top levels of the military establishment. But no worries, because the president-elect has found just the man to lead the Department of Defense through this time of disruption and innovation. From The New York Times:
President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday chose Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host and veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to be his next defense secretary, elevating a television ally to run the Pentagon and lead 1.3 million active-duty troops. The choice of Mr. Hegseth was outside the norm of the traditional defense secretary. But he was a dedicated supporter of Mr. Trump during his first term, defending his interactions with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, embracing his “America First” agenda of trying to withdraw U.S. troops from abroad and energetically taking up the cause of combat veterans accused of war crimes.”
“Outside the norm”? Oh, NYT, you just can’t help yourself, can you?
In a statement announcing his pick, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Hegseth’s combat experience and support of the military and veterans. “Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First,” Mr. Trump said. “With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice—our military will be great again, and America will never back down.”
Of course not. That’s the president-elect’s job, as the people of Ukraine will soon find out, I fear.
Outside of his military service, Hegseth’s CV is bog-standard modern conservatism. He’s a double Ivy—Princeton and then the Kennedy School at Harvard. As an undergrad, undoubtedly beset by the forces of the liberal elites, he worked for a conservative campus publication, The Princeton Tory. He has an unsuccessful run for the Senate from Minnesota on his résumé. In his career at Fox News, he has become a friend and ally both of the president-elect and of any American soldier accused of war crimes.
In 2019, Mr. Hegseth lobbied heavily on behalf of Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a member of the Navy SEALs who was acquitted of serious war crimes in Iraq. Mr. Trump reversed a demotion ordered as punishment, then fired the Navy secretary, whom Mr. Hegseth had aggressively criticized. Mr. Hegseth defended Chief Gallagher on Fox News and spoke to Mr. Trump several times about the case. “From the beginning, this was overzealous prosecutors who were not giving the benefit of the doubt to the trigger-pullers,” he said.
Let him explain further, in fluent Fox-speak.
Mr. Hegseth’s book, the New York Times best-seller “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” was published in June. “Our ‘elites’ are like the feckless drug-addled businessmen at Nakatomi Plaza, looking down on Bruce Willis’s John McClane in ‘Die Hard,’ ” Mr. Hegseth wrote in the book. “But there will come a day when they realize they need John McClane—that in fact their ability to live in peace and prosperity has always depended on guys like him being honorable, powerful and deadly.”
For this, a guy needed an advanced degree from Harvard? Of course, he did send the actual sheepskin back. Bold move, big guy.
And if you’re worried about the rise of white supremacy within the ranks of the uniformed military, don’t be. Hegseth has you covered there, too. In the aftermath of the white riot in Charlottesville in 2017, he defended the then-president*’s Both Sidesism. From MMFA:
You can call that out, and then—but still also listen, say, on Black Lives Matter, to the grievances of young African-American males in urban cores who feel like they are looked at differently by police. That discussion still should be had. Just like young white men who feel like, “Hey, I’m treated differently in this country than I feel like I should have. I’ve become a second-class citizen. None of it—they tell me I have white privilege.” None of that justifies racial preferences or violence at all. But there’s always a grievance underneath it that it’s worth talking about. And we should never live in such a politically correct culture that we can’t at least have a conversation. There’s a reason those people were out there. Some of it is outright racism and needs to be condemned. A lot of it, though, is I feel like my country is slipping away and just because I talk about nationalism—not white nationalism—doesn’t mean I’m talking in code that I’m a racist.
Of course not. Perish the thought. There is that business with the tattoos, however.
Hegseth was removed from duty with his National Guard unit tasked with crowd control at President Biden’s inauguration. The Guard was shell-mouthed about the whole affair, but Hegseth claimed it was because he sports a Jerusalem cross on his arm. He also has the words “Deus Vult” inscribed on his person. Deus Vult—in English, “God wills it”—was the alleged rallying cry of Pope Urban II when he launched the First Crusade. The Crusades are quite in vogue among white nationalists of the Catholic persuasion, so one can understand why the Guard might have been worried about a guy guarding a liberal president while sporting eleventh-century papal war cries as body art.
I grow concerned about the tone.