Skip to content

The Senate is treating the military as a clown show

A couple of months I was talking with a friend about just how crazy Donald Trump's cabinet appointments might get. I argued that there was an outer boundary, especially in roles that Republicans really care about. "For example," I said, "plenty of Republicans on the Armed Services Committee are serious about the military. There's a limit to who they'll put in charge of the Pentagon."

This hasn't aged well. Today Pete Hegseth had his confirmation hearing and it was a dog's breakfast. Democrats attacked Hegseth as a drunken philanderer while Republicans praised him as the second coming of George Patton. There was nothing approaching seriousness in the entire five hours.

But here's what really gets me. Put aside his history of heavy drinking. He says he's put that behind him. Put aside the accusations of sexual assault. They're unproven. Even put aside the fact that he's a TV talking head whose only management experience is running a couple of nonprofits into the ground. The Secretary of Defense isn't truly a management role, after all. It's mostly a policy and leadership role.

But even if you put that all aside, you'd still want to know his views on important defense issues. What does Hegseth think of NATO? How critical is the Columbia class submarine program? Should we still be building new supercarriers in an era of massive drone fleets and cheap cruise missiles? Are we putting enough effort into our own drone programs? Do we still need manned fighter jets? Can we defend Taiwan if it comes to that? Should military troops be used for policing jobs in the US? Are there specific areas of military procurement he wants to reform? Are we putting enough money and effort into AI development? Nuclear modernization? The F-35? Critical raw materials? Recruiting? Cybersecurity? Readiness?

I didn't watch the hearings, but based on news reports I gather that none of these issues were raised. Not one. The only thing we really know is that Hegseth doesn't much like trans people and plans to root out DEI and wokeness in the military. That's it.

Wasn't there a time when senators cared about the substantive views of a nominee for defense secretary? There was, and it spanned the entire postwar era through Lloyd Austin's confirmation four years ago. But now that Donald Trump is about to take office for a second time, it's over. No one even pretends to care anymore about serious military issues. What does that say about the upcoming administration?

97 thoughts on “The Senate is treating the military as a clown show

Comments are closed.