Welcome to the Executive Presidency
By John Waters & Adam Ellwanger
February 07, 2025
“I would support you to be spokesperson for the Pentagon,” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal acidly told Pete Hegseth during his hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The insult was a poke in Pete’s eye for his career at Fox News. Blumenthal, who once fibbed that he had served in Vietnam as a Marine (he never left the States), thought Hegseth lacked the record of “leadership” to head an organization as large and complex as the Department of Defense. Evidently, it never crossed Blumenthal’s mind that this appointment was a first step toward making the department less large and complex.
On paper, former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had such “leadership” experience, as did Jim Mattis, Bob Gates, Leon Panetta, Donald Rumsfeld, and most other department secretaries over the last 25 years.
Pete, on the other hand, led a platoon in Iraq before smiling his way through Saturday morning news shows. Once, during a bit on “Fox and Friends,” Hegseth tossed an ax that sailed over its target and struck a man standing nearby. Pete grimaced, the man was unhurt, and the show went on.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/02/07/trump_alone_can_fix_it_152321.html
