“The Pentagon “ should be bulldozed, the ground beneath it salted and if there are any competent and non corrupt people left , (probably no more than 8 to 12 folks at the most) they should be established as the new DOD it a strip mall on the outskirts of Cleveland.
I can't object much to be honest. My two years in that place were the most miserable of my military career, and I had a better gig than most.
If we're going to bulldoze it, we should first move the hotdog stand out of the courtyard. That's a national treasure. And the water fountain memorialized behind glass in the hallway on the first subdeck ... I reckon it could draw some decent money at an auction. Not much nostalgia to go around in that place.
My mom toured the brand new Pentagon as a teenager after it was completed in Jan 1943. I think it's still the largest office building in the world. It must have been jaw-droppingly impressive & futuristic, powerfully symbolic of American might in the middle of WW2. Credit Gen Leslie Groves for its conception & construction (also for the Manhattan Project). Despite fastidious maintenance, I suspect it's getting kind of rundown by now, and imagine what it takes to upgrade the electrical & internet networks, along with security. I'm not sure if anyone's thinking of moving to more modern quarters, but the building itself is of huge historical & cultural significance, though probably WAY too big to save as a parks site or museum. It'll probably have to be demolished like Penn Station and AC Enterprise were.
Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary has not been, for a moment, deserving of your benefit of the doubt. He was never a good choice, or even a reasonable choice, for that job. So when you wrote...
"I was one of those urging people to keep an open mind about Secretary Hegseth. There was a chance he was going to be different. More connected to the plight of the rank and file..."
...you showed that you don't understand what a person needs to know, and needs to do, in order to be effective as the U.S. Secretary of Defense. The job requires
(a) the ability to manage an organization with millions of employees,
(b) the ability to synthesize information from service members and politicians and industry executives into useful advice for a president, and
(c) deep understanding of the importance, to a nervous world, of visibly competent management of the most powerful military on the planet.
Pete Hegseth was never going to be able to do *any* of that.
Is there room for benefit of the doubt about Pete Hegseth the private person? Sure. He certainly seems to be hip-deep in character flaws, but let's be generous in our belief in redemption. Let's allow for the possibility that he may grow into someone deserving of a modicum of respect, eventually. But first, we eject him from DoD.
I accept your premise, which if I can paraphrase, is that it was unrealistic and perhaps stupid to expect from Hegseth anything different from what we've gotten.
But I'll challenge you on the detail. The snip you quote here doesn't show what you allege it shows. For that to be true, you'd have to understand my level of knowledge beyond this article, and you'd have to situate that single comment within the context of that knowledge and my other pronouncements on the same subject.
What I intended that comment to show is an open mind despite almost complete doubt that this was the right person for the job. I didn't think he was the right candidate in really any meaningful sense. In fact I didn't think he was suited to even a mid-level advisory role in the OSD. Some of his views were not only wrong, but reflective of lacking the gravitas and strategic appreciation for the role, not to mention the leadership ability. He alienated massive segments of his own department long before being sworn in.
But I've found it more constructive, especially as I grow in age and experience and patience, to retain the capacity for self-doubt. Especially when someone has been confirmed and they're in the role. So, like other doubters, I squinted to find something positive. Some faint reflection of hope that he might just shake things up without making a hash out of it all.
Of course, he's made an even bigger hash out of it than I expected. Because I wrongly expected a prior officer to at least do what we'd expect of an E-1 boot camp survivor who, when in possession of information that might help the enemy, knows to safeguard it or die trying.
I broadly agree with your assessment of what a SecDef needs to be able to do. We probably agree it takes a hell of a lot more to do it well. The only SecDef I observed up close was Rumsfeld, who was the absolute picture of competence in pursuit of totally corrupt and decrepit aims. It's hard to find a SecDef who can exercise character in a political role without getting fired.
I labor my response to your insightful comment for a specific reason.
Americans are looking at this and thinking how scary it is that we have someone unqualified as our SecDef. But the truth is far more horrifying.
We have someone *qualified* as SecDef.
Because Congress has failed to impose qualifications on this position, any Tom/Dick/Pete can be hired into it. That's the crisis we've been sleepwalking into. Because we somehow have convinced ourselves, in spite of every fact to the contrary, that elected officials will behave responsibly.
Tony, thank you for taking the time to reply with such thoughtful insight.
It's been true for almost 250 years that senior U.S. government positions have vanishingly few actual legal requirements. So far, MOST of our electorates and most of our leaders have understood the need to choose wisely before handing someone significant authority, responsibility, power. The founders did not anticipate a capricious person who would deliberately choose unfit candidates to fill leadership positions.
I was an Isaac Asimov fan as a teenager and enjoyed his "Foundation" series about a dying empire and one brilliant man's scientific, statistical approach to sociology. In that series, an outlier, a person called The Mule, disrupts the orderly recovery for a vast society and scrambles its predicted development. Donald Trump is very much The Mule in the American experiment. Hegseth is one of many in Trump's Cabinet chosen deliberately to be corrosive. It's Constitutional quicksand.
Great commentary by Lt Col Selber and Mr. Carr. I share your perspectives on the political “leadership” at the top. Some politicians wear a uniform and some wear a suit…..I’ve been inside the military officer corps and inside the civilian political machine….I served as a USAF C-130 pilot with several years duty in SE Asia, after the Fall of Saigon. I was at the “tip of the spear” enforcing the Reagan Doctrine in the early 1980’s. Reagan was the last great leader we had at the top….He made his mistakes, but like Harry Truman before him, he owned his mistakes. As the plaque said on Truman’s desk in the Oval Office, “The Buck Stops Here.” That’s the measure of true leadership….Reagan served in the reserves during WWII and Truman was a decorated combat veteran of “The Great War,” as WWI was called “before we started numbering them.” Every generation of men in my family tree has served in America’s wars going back to the Revolution. Very few of us made it career. We were all just Iowa farmers and went home to the farm after each war……Not a single man in Mr. Trump’s family has ever served in a real uniform. Mr. Trump’s military prep school uniform doesn’t count. That was just play acting, the same as everything else in Mr. Trump’s entire life. It’s all a phony drama for the TV cameras.
“Most of my critiques of the Hegseth era thus far are just old whine in new bottles.”
I appreciate your cleverness here :-)
It does bring up a question that, in my opinion, might be difficult to pose in an official capacity, let alone respond to with actionable evidence, but is critical in an evaluation of
the performance of any individual holding high-level government/military role:
In your assessment of Pete Hegseth’s performance, do you assign any weight to the possibility of an active substance addiction problem?
Hegseth has a reputation and a documented history of alcohol abuse, if not alcohol dependency. This is not only a huge red-flag in terms of his responsibilities to our military, but it could be a massive vulnerability in terms of our national security.
“Alcohol-dependent individuals have serious memory and executive function problems in several areas, and decisional and cognitive impulsivity, problem-solving, inhibition, and self-regulation are affected. Long-term alcohol use is closely linked to cognitive function degradation…”
I have not seen this addressed in any meaningful or serious manner in terms of Hegseth’s ability to perform his job, nor have I noted it addressed in terms of medical fitness for duty. (Also, if Mr. Hegseth is suffering from alcohol addiction, his personal health (psychological and medical) is at great risk and he needs intervention)
I enjoyed this article very much, thank you for it!
This is a great question and doesn't get asked enough. Addiction grips people. Once we know about it, we can help. It might also mean, usually does mean, they can't hold a security clearance or have access to the tools of military force in a command capacity.
As I watch him operate more and more, it does make me wonder. Sometimes, he does things that are clearly going to be self-defeating. Doesn't feel rational.
Yeah, I mean at this point Hegseth should fall back on his infantry training. Stay in your foxhole and keep your head down. Instead, he's out there on Tuesday crowing about prosecuting his senior aides, which just highlights how oblivious he seems to be about how his own conduct is understood. I would have no trouble as a prosecutor making a case to prosecute Hegseth based solely on what's available in the public domain.
So yeah, it's like he's trying to make things worse for himself. And he may yet succeed. But this is maybe a function of surrounding himself with the wrong people and only being told what he wants to hear.
This is an excellent interpretation of the unfortunate and disruptive events in the DoD. Here is a quote from the essay that captures much of the challenge for the secretary: "One of the most noticeable habits of someone who lacks the gravitas and strategic appreciation for high command is the inability to see deep enough into their moves to understand the risks they are creating."
Aka, "there is no adult in the room." Successful leaders rely on seasoned, trustworthy advice to lead effectively. Leadership can be a lonely endeavor if one allows it to be. Unfortunately, the secretary will continue to struggle unless he recognizes his strategic and youthful shortcomings and surrounds himself with experienced guidance.
Really great writing, and lots of insight (and sardonic humor) for a non-military guy like me. I'm just gonna quibble with you on #4: Hegseth has always, transparently bern nothing more than a yammering, petulant, callow Fox News hatemongering fratboy lout, too much of a high school bully to be trusted with managing a franchise restaurant, much less the Pentagon/US military. Of course the entire Trump cabinet (and their congressional enablers) are Worst Ever, a real-life freakshow equivalent to the Cenobite demons in the "Hellraiser" movies. Unfortunately head demon Pinhead was literate, intelligent & targeted in his malice, and not just an itchy blob of shambling destruction and gratuitous misery like Trump.
In the category of things I wish I had written: "yammering, petulant, callow Fox News hatemongering fratboy lout, too much of a high school bully to be trusted with managing a franchise restaurant, much less the Pentagon/US military."
Tony, I feel you mailed in the frigate from a landlocked country made of Swiss cheese metaphor. As Switzerland is a land locked country, there is a snappier metaphor to be had. Call Dennis Miller if you must, but get this done. It’s for national security!
Thank you for the article. The prose is as always well laid, but despite the signposting and paragraph headers I was a little lost as to connection between Hagseth's perceived leadership, the leaks, and the unmerry 3 on first read. I was hooked to the reading but a little unclear about the main idea of the article as it were.
For the content itself, I think Hagseth as Sec Def was the wrong choice both for character and mistimed for skills reasons. DoD procurement across the services is not in good shape, on time, or under budget. Even if Hagseth had been provided excellent undersecrataries, clear objectives, and the disposition to hear wise council, it would be a miraculous effort to meaningfully diagnose and fix procurement issues for someone who has never been involved with it. I don't so much mind eccentric takes about things like women in combat or a host of others, but the team management aspect in this admin seems even worst than last time around.
I'd make Team of Rivals mandatory skim reading if I was ever asked, but I'm just along for the ride.
It's astute ref Team of Rivals, and always been my wish that Lincoln's approach sticks long enough to become a habit and cultural fixture of our executive branch. We're sprinting in the other direction at this point.
Appreciate you reading Henry, and I want to credit your observation about the flow of the piece. The way my brain spills onto the page sometimes inverts or distorts the flow of ideas, something I tend to correct in the edit. Sometimes, no matter how many revisions, I can't effectively re-jig to ease the journey. The more times I read this piece, the less the flow makes sense to me, which is the opposite of what most others observe, including my long-suffering chief editor (/wife) who made the same remark as you about this one.
More swings in the batting cage. That's the only path to raising my batting average.
Thanks for engaging. I think you're right that Hegseth would have struggled even if he struck the target at center of mass. He needed a shadow deputy who could balance him out. Even then, it would have been a struggle. But we are miles distant from anything like that now.
His big issue now is basing senior officer promotions on appearance. He's literally used the phrase "fit not fat."
He's in the weeds. It reflects inability to grasp or grapple with the big stuff. It's startling, honestly.
Mr. Carr: absolutely spot on!! The fundamental problem is a complete failure of our political system. Congress has unconstitutionally delegated away its tax authority to the president and it seems nothing is being done to restore that authority where it belongs….from the Democrat coverup of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and failure to check Obama’s unconstitutional “pen and phone” decrees, to the Republican Congress rubber stamping totally unqualified personnel in top appointments, not to mention the electorate handing the reins of power back to a man who has made it known by his words and deeds he is an enemy of our constitutional order, we may be past the point of no return….$37 trillion in debt and nobody is willing to confront the 900-lb fiscal gorilla in the room….to quote Trump’s former Chief of Staff, Gen John Kelly, “God help us all.”…basically, we are “suffering from an excess of democracy.” It’s the mentality of a lynch mob. The Jacobins with their public guillotine in charge. It’s all partisanship and tribalism over any semblance of truth and justice. Mob rule versus coherent leadership….Our Constitution was designed to restrain and prevent mob rule. But, the checks and balances have been overturned by partisan loyalties.
Tony, I appreciate the “old whine in a new bottle” quote; the rug needs, and is getting, a good shake. No doubt, there’s a lot of corporate knowledge exiting with DRP, but it was inevitable that we boomers would exit sooner or later. My hope is that the ship will be righted at the top, and then the Department streamlined with a laser focus on combat effectiveness…less chaff, more wheat. The enemy never sleeps.
Another banger, Tony! I was rooting for Pete in a big way especially after the last SecDef, but we're seeing self-sabotage playing out in real-time. He's got just a sliver of a chance for redemption but it might be too late...
Thank you for reading and for your comment. Pete wouldn't have been my first choice for a number of reasons, in particular his views on women in combat. But once he was nominated and confirmed, I didn't find it constructive or realistic to continue opposing. It's at that moment in every sequence that I'll actively work to pry my mind open and attempt something like objectivity. Because the alternative is to wish for the failure of our own SecDef, which is asinine.
Unfortunately, he's proving his critics right, and in fact turning his supporters against him. Playing loose with classified communications is an absolute red line for many people, but the failure to own it afterward, the excuse-making, the save-assing ... made the damage compound. He demonstrates a lack of basic character and leadership.
No one's asking me, but my advice to Pete would be to resign while he can still salvage the dignity of controlling his fate. My advice to the White House would be to fire him, today, and get someone else in there who is up to the task.
The noises coming out of the Pentagon right now are not good at all.
I was skeptical, but then was like, “hey maybe I’m just getting old, let’s try something different, I’m curious how this turns out”…. I’m not so curious anymore.
“The Pentagon “ should be bulldozed, the ground beneath it salted and if there are any competent and non corrupt people left , (probably no more than 8 to 12 folks at the most) they should be established as the new DOD it a strip mall on the outskirts of Cleveland.
I can't object much to be honest. My two years in that place were the most miserable of my military career, and I had a better gig than most.
If we're going to bulldoze it, we should first move the hotdog stand out of the courtyard. That's a national treasure. And the water fountain memorialized behind glass in the hallway on the first subdeck ... I reckon it could draw some decent money at an auction. Not much nostalgia to go around in that place.
Those are good hot dogs.
My mom toured the brand new Pentagon as a teenager after it was completed in Jan 1943. I think it's still the largest office building in the world. It must have been jaw-droppingly impressive & futuristic, powerfully symbolic of American might in the middle of WW2. Credit Gen Leslie Groves for its conception & construction (also for the Manhattan Project). Despite fastidious maintenance, I suspect it's getting kind of rundown by now, and imagine what it takes to upgrade the electrical & internet networks, along with security. I'm not sure if anyone's thinking of moving to more modern quarters, but the building itself is of huge historical & cultural significance, though probably WAY too big to save as a parks site or museum. It'll probably have to be demolished like Penn Station and AC Enterprise were.
👍😎
Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary has not been, for a moment, deserving of your benefit of the doubt. He was never a good choice, or even a reasonable choice, for that job. So when you wrote...
"I was one of those urging people to keep an open mind about Secretary Hegseth. There was a chance he was going to be different. More connected to the plight of the rank and file..."
...you showed that you don't understand what a person needs to know, and needs to do, in order to be effective as the U.S. Secretary of Defense. The job requires
(a) the ability to manage an organization with millions of employees,
(b) the ability to synthesize information from service members and politicians and industry executives into useful advice for a president, and
(c) deep understanding of the importance, to a nervous world, of visibly competent management of the most powerful military on the planet.
Pete Hegseth was never going to be able to do *any* of that.
Is there room for benefit of the doubt about Pete Hegseth the private person? Sure. He certainly seems to be hip-deep in character flaws, but let's be generous in our belief in redemption. Let's allow for the possibility that he may grow into someone deserving of a modicum of respect, eventually. But first, we eject him from DoD.
Appreciate your comment Jim. Let's discuss it.
I accept your premise, which if I can paraphrase, is that it was unrealistic and perhaps stupid to expect from Hegseth anything different from what we've gotten.
But I'll challenge you on the detail. The snip you quote here doesn't show what you allege it shows. For that to be true, you'd have to understand my level of knowledge beyond this article, and you'd have to situate that single comment within the context of that knowledge and my other pronouncements on the same subject.
What I intended that comment to show is an open mind despite almost complete doubt that this was the right person for the job. I didn't think he was the right candidate in really any meaningful sense. In fact I didn't think he was suited to even a mid-level advisory role in the OSD. Some of his views were not only wrong, but reflective of lacking the gravitas and strategic appreciation for the role, not to mention the leadership ability. He alienated massive segments of his own department long before being sworn in.
But I've found it more constructive, especially as I grow in age and experience and patience, to retain the capacity for self-doubt. Especially when someone has been confirmed and they're in the role. So, like other doubters, I squinted to find something positive. Some faint reflection of hope that he might just shake things up without making a hash out of it all.
Of course, he's made an even bigger hash out of it than I expected. Because I wrongly expected a prior officer to at least do what we'd expect of an E-1 boot camp survivor who, when in possession of information that might help the enemy, knows to safeguard it or die trying.
I broadly agree with your assessment of what a SecDef needs to be able to do. We probably agree it takes a hell of a lot more to do it well. The only SecDef I observed up close was Rumsfeld, who was the absolute picture of competence in pursuit of totally corrupt and decrepit aims. It's hard to find a SecDef who can exercise character in a political role without getting fired.
I labor my response to your insightful comment for a specific reason.
Americans are looking at this and thinking how scary it is that we have someone unqualified as our SecDef. But the truth is far more horrifying.
We have someone *qualified* as SecDef.
Because Congress has failed to impose qualifications on this position, any Tom/Dick/Pete can be hired into it. That's the crisis we've been sleepwalking into. Because we somehow have convinced ourselves, in spite of every fact to the contrary, that elected officials will behave responsibly.
Thanks for the engagement Jim, and for reading.
Tony, thank you for taking the time to reply with such thoughtful insight.
It's been true for almost 250 years that senior U.S. government positions have vanishingly few actual legal requirements. So far, MOST of our electorates and most of our leaders have understood the need to choose wisely before handing someone significant authority, responsibility, power. The founders did not anticipate a capricious person who would deliberately choose unfit candidates to fill leadership positions.
I was an Isaac Asimov fan as a teenager and enjoyed his "Foundation" series about a dying empire and one brilliant man's scientific, statistical approach to sociology. In that series, an outlier, a person called The Mule, disrupts the orderly recovery for a vast society and scrambles its predicted development. Donald Trump is very much The Mule in the American experiment. Hegseth is one of many in Trump's Cabinet chosen deliberately to be corrosive. It's Constitutional quicksand.
Love the "never pet a burning dog" metaphor.
Standing ovation.
Thank you sir.
Don’t you call me, sir, Tony! I’m a retired occifer — I actually work for a living! It’s very different than being an O.
Great commentary by Lt Col Selber and Mr. Carr. I share your perspectives on the political “leadership” at the top. Some politicians wear a uniform and some wear a suit…..I’ve been inside the military officer corps and inside the civilian political machine….I served as a USAF C-130 pilot with several years duty in SE Asia, after the Fall of Saigon. I was at the “tip of the spear” enforcing the Reagan Doctrine in the early 1980’s. Reagan was the last great leader we had at the top….He made his mistakes, but like Harry Truman before him, he owned his mistakes. As the plaque said on Truman’s desk in the Oval Office, “The Buck Stops Here.” That’s the measure of true leadership….Reagan served in the reserves during WWII and Truman was a decorated combat veteran of “The Great War,” as WWI was called “before we started numbering them.” Every generation of men in my family tree has served in America’s wars going back to the Revolution. Very few of us made it career. We were all just Iowa farmers and went home to the farm after each war……Not a single man in Mr. Trump’s family has ever served in a real uniform. Mr. Trump’s military prep school uniform doesn’t count. That was just play acting, the same as everything else in Mr. Trump’s entire life. It’s all a phony drama for the TV cameras.
“Most of my critiques of the Hegseth era thus far are just old whine in new bottles.”
I appreciate your cleverness here :-)
It does bring up a question that, in my opinion, might be difficult to pose in an official capacity, let alone respond to with actionable evidence, but is critical in an evaluation of
the performance of any individual holding high-level government/military role:
In your assessment of Pete Hegseth’s performance, do you assign any weight to the possibility of an active substance addiction problem?
Hegseth has a reputation and a documented history of alcohol abuse, if not alcohol dependency. This is not only a huge red-flag in terms of his responsibilities to our military, but it could be a massive vulnerability in terms of our national security.
“Alcohol-dependent individuals have serious memory and executive function problems in several areas, and decisional and cognitive impulsivity, problem-solving, inhibition, and self-regulation are affected. Long-term alcohol use is closely linked to cognitive function degradation…”
(https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9573267/)
I have not seen this addressed in any meaningful or serious manner in terms of Hegseth’s ability to perform his job, nor have I noted it addressed in terms of medical fitness for duty. (Also, if Mr. Hegseth is suffering from alcohol addiction, his personal health (psychological and medical) is at great risk and he needs intervention)
I enjoyed this article very much, thank you for it!
This is a great question and doesn't get asked enough. Addiction grips people. Once we know about it, we can help. It might also mean, usually does mean, they can't hold a security clearance or have access to the tools of military force in a command capacity.
As I watch him operate more and more, it does make me wonder. Sometimes, he does things that are clearly going to be self-defeating. Doesn't feel rational.
Reminds me of a common saying around here - when you find yourself in a hole the best way out is to quit digging.
Yeah, I mean at this point Hegseth should fall back on his infantry training. Stay in your foxhole and keep your head down. Instead, he's out there on Tuesday crowing about prosecuting his senior aides, which just highlights how oblivious he seems to be about how his own conduct is understood. I would have no trouble as a prosecutor making a case to prosecute Hegseth based solely on what's available in the public domain.
So yeah, it's like he's trying to make things worse for himself. And he may yet succeed. But this is maybe a function of surrounding himself with the wrong people and only being told what he wants to hear.
This is an excellent interpretation of the unfortunate and disruptive events in the DoD. Here is a quote from the essay that captures much of the challenge for the secretary: "One of the most noticeable habits of someone who lacks the gravitas and strategic appreciation for high command is the inability to see deep enough into their moves to understand the risks they are creating."
Aka, "there is no adult in the room." Successful leaders rely on seasoned, trustworthy advice to lead effectively. Leadership can be a lonely endeavor if one allows it to be. Unfortunately, the secretary will continue to struggle unless he recognizes his strategic and youthful shortcomings and surrounds himself with experienced guidance.
Really great writing, and lots of insight (and sardonic humor) for a non-military guy like me. I'm just gonna quibble with you on #4: Hegseth has always, transparently bern nothing more than a yammering, petulant, callow Fox News hatemongering fratboy lout, too much of a high school bully to be trusted with managing a franchise restaurant, much less the Pentagon/US military. Of course the entire Trump cabinet (and their congressional enablers) are Worst Ever, a real-life freakshow equivalent to the Cenobite demons in the "Hellraiser" movies. Unfortunately head demon Pinhead was literate, intelligent & targeted in his malice, and not just an itchy blob of shambling destruction and gratuitous misery like Trump.
In the category of things I wish I had written: "yammering, petulant, callow Fox News hatemongering fratboy lout, too much of a high school bully to be trusted with managing a franchise restaurant, much less the Pentagon/US military."
"When everything matters the same, nothing matters."
Or, as an boss of mine once put it, "Some things matter more than others, but the other things matter just as much."
Great submission for an organizational development consulting certificate.
I am still laughing at kung pao.
Tony, I feel you mailed in the frigate from a landlocked country made of Swiss cheese metaphor. As Switzerland is a land locked country, there is a snappier metaphor to be had. Call Dennis Miller if you must, but get this done. It’s for national security!
Fair. This is a priority for me.
Thank you for the article. The prose is as always well laid, but despite the signposting and paragraph headers I was a little lost as to connection between Hagseth's perceived leadership, the leaks, and the unmerry 3 on first read. I was hooked to the reading but a little unclear about the main idea of the article as it were.
For the content itself, I think Hagseth as Sec Def was the wrong choice both for character and mistimed for skills reasons. DoD procurement across the services is not in good shape, on time, or under budget. Even if Hagseth had been provided excellent undersecrataries, clear objectives, and the disposition to hear wise council, it would be a miraculous effort to meaningfully diagnose and fix procurement issues for someone who has never been involved with it. I don't so much mind eccentric takes about things like women in combat or a host of others, but the team management aspect in this admin seems even worst than last time around.
I'd make Team of Rivals mandatory skim reading if I was ever asked, but I'm just along for the ride.
It's astute ref Team of Rivals, and always been my wish that Lincoln's approach sticks long enough to become a habit and cultural fixture of our executive branch. We're sprinting in the other direction at this point.
Appreciate you reading Henry, and I want to credit your observation about the flow of the piece. The way my brain spills onto the page sometimes inverts or distorts the flow of ideas, something I tend to correct in the edit. Sometimes, no matter how many revisions, I can't effectively re-jig to ease the journey. The more times I read this piece, the less the flow makes sense to me, which is the opposite of what most others observe, including my long-suffering chief editor (/wife) who made the same remark as you about this one.
More swings in the batting cage. That's the only path to raising my batting average.
Thanks for engaging. I think you're right that Hegseth would have struggled even if he struck the target at center of mass. He needed a shadow deputy who could balance him out. Even then, it would have been a struggle. But we are miles distant from anything like that now.
His big issue now is basing senior officer promotions on appearance. He's literally used the phrase "fit not fat."
He's in the weeds. It reflects inability to grasp or grapple with the big stuff. It's startling, honestly.
When you pray for clarity and this is on your page. Thank you
Thanks for reading, Jennifer.
Mr. Carr: absolutely spot on!! The fundamental problem is a complete failure of our political system. Congress has unconstitutionally delegated away its tax authority to the president and it seems nothing is being done to restore that authority where it belongs….from the Democrat coverup of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and failure to check Obama’s unconstitutional “pen and phone” decrees, to the Republican Congress rubber stamping totally unqualified personnel in top appointments, not to mention the electorate handing the reins of power back to a man who has made it known by his words and deeds he is an enemy of our constitutional order, we may be past the point of no return….$37 trillion in debt and nobody is willing to confront the 900-lb fiscal gorilla in the room….to quote Trump’s former Chief of Staff, Gen John Kelly, “God help us all.”…basically, we are “suffering from an excess of democracy.” It’s the mentality of a lynch mob. The Jacobins with their public guillotine in charge. It’s all partisanship and tribalism over any semblance of truth and justice. Mob rule versus coherent leadership….Our Constitution was designed to restrain and prevent mob rule. But, the checks and balances have been overturned by partisan loyalties.
Tony, I appreciate the “old whine in a new bottle” quote; the rug needs, and is getting, a good shake. No doubt, there’s a lot of corporate knowledge exiting with DRP, but it was inevitable that we boomers would exit sooner or later. My hope is that the ship will be righted at the top, and then the Department streamlined with a laser focus on combat effectiveness…less chaff, more wheat. The enemy never sleeps.
Another banger, Tony! I was rooting for Pete in a big way especially after the last SecDef, but we're seeing self-sabotage playing out in real-time. He's got just a sliver of a chance for redemption but it might be too late...
Thank you for reading and for your comment. Pete wouldn't have been my first choice for a number of reasons, in particular his views on women in combat. But once he was nominated and confirmed, I didn't find it constructive or realistic to continue opposing. It's at that moment in every sequence that I'll actively work to pry my mind open and attempt something like objectivity. Because the alternative is to wish for the failure of our own SecDef, which is asinine.
Unfortunately, he's proving his critics right, and in fact turning his supporters against him. Playing loose with classified communications is an absolute red line for many people, but the failure to own it afterward, the excuse-making, the save-assing ... made the damage compound. He demonstrates a lack of basic character and leadership.
No one's asking me, but my advice to Pete would be to resign while he can still salvage the dignity of controlling his fate. My advice to the White House would be to fire him, today, and get someone else in there who is up to the task.
The noises coming out of the Pentagon right now are not good at all.
I was skeptical, but then was like, “hey maybe I’m just getting old, let’s try something different, I’m curious how this turns out”…. I’m not so curious anymore.