The Pentagon's Grim Reaper Cometh

<![CDATA[All in all, I have been delighted with the picks thus far offered up by President-Elect Donald Trump to staff his incoming administration. Whether it's Congressman Michael Waltz as National Security Advisor, Susie Wiles as his chief of staff, Florida Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, John Ratcliffe at CIA, Elise Stefanik at the UN, Mike Huckabee as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, there's lots of great choices to go around. So much so, in fact, that even some of the voices in regime media, ones that said this would be the last election ever if Hitler-Nazi-Trump and the Republicans won, have begrudgingly acknowledged that some of these nominations aren't too bad. Jonathan Lemire of MSNBC and Politico, who spent the runnup to Election Day calling Donald Trump's rhetoric dangerous and racist, going out of his way to change the transcript of President Joe Biden calling half the country garbage, had to admit that there might indeed be some grown-ups in the room with Trump. It seemed at least for the last three or four days, there might not be the wall-to-wall contentious fights ahead we on the right anticipated. Then came the announcement from Donald Trump late Tuesday afternoon that he had chosen his nominee to be the next Secretary of Defense - Pete Hegseth. Once the texts started streaming in on my phone, I knew it was time to buckle up, because we were going to encounter unexpected turbulence. The Hegseth choice is certainly Donald Trump thinking outside of the box, which in and of itself is actually a good thing considering the sclerotic atmosphere at the Pentagon. But you can just hear what the complaints are going to be, right? He's a Fox News host. He's unqualified. He's too young. He hasn't run anything. He's not a thinker.The confirmation hearings are going to be nothing short of spectacular. This nomination will be the one scalp the Democrats in the Senate are going to try to claim. You can just see it coming. After spending some time last night reviewing the record and recordings of Pete Hegseth, I've come to the conclusion that Pete is going to do just fine - both in his confirmation hearing, and on the job as SecDef.The primary objection seems to be that he's a media guy, as though that's suddenly dispositive for not being qualified to go into government. I'm sure that same standard will be applied to the parade of Democrats that have established a conduit between government service and regime media. Here's just a few in recent years.Jay Carney left Time Magazine to go be Barack Obama's press secretary. Linda Douglass left her Washington correspondent job for ABC News to go work in the White House communications shop. Doug Frantz left the Washington Post and conveniently wound up in the State Department. Symone Sanders left her MSNBC anchor job to go work for Joe Biden's administration. Jill Zuckman left the Chicago Tribune to go work for the Transportation Department during the Obama years. Stephen Barr, also with the Washington Post, joined the Department of Labor. Tony Snow left Fox News to go be George W. Bush's press secretary. This is not the first time this has happened, and these examples are only in the direction of media to government. If you count the people from government that wind up on media as talking heads or anchors, the number of examples explode. The only reason Democrats are going to try to make hay out of Hegseth's most recent job as co-anchor of Fox and Friends Weekends is because it's on Fox News. The sin of omission in this argument, though, is that nowhere among the left's baying at the Moon is his military service both on active duty and in the Minnesota National Guard, including tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, as well as his work as executive director of both Concerned Vets For America and Vets For Freedom. And in fact, what the left doesn't realize they're doing by flailing away at Hegseth is they're slitting the throats of their own credibility. How many anchors on MSNBC and CNN this week are trying to reestablish their brand after getting caught gaslighting the country last week? Virtually all of them. What is their skill set again? As far as anchors are concerned, it's to read a teleprompter. If they're criticizing Hegseth as being unqualified for the Defense job because he's doing, *checks notes*, what they do every night, that's not the ball spiking they think it is.He's too young, regime media has already claimed. Even Donald Trump, according to Pete last week on the Shawn Ryan podcast, was concerned that Hegseth was too young for a cabinet job. Here he is talking about being the runner-up to Secretary of Veterans Affairs in Trump's first administration.  Pete is 44-years-old. By comparison, the Late Donald Rumsfeld, veteran of two stints at DOD under Presidents Gerald Ford and George W. Bush, began his first tour at the age of 43. Age is not a factor here. As for allegedly not knowing anything, regime media and Democrats are overlooking a Bachelor's Hegseth he earned from Princeton, and a Master's from Harvard. He's also done think tank work in his past, affiliated with groups like Americans For Prosperity. He's no dummy. Hegseth, if confirmed, is going to be a disruptive force at the Department of Defense, something that building desperately needs. One of my close friends and colleagues on the radio is retired Army Col. Kurt Schlichter. He writes often over at our sister site, Townhall.com. Kurt and I have had conversations for years about what ails the Pentagon, and he has consistently told me that there's nothing that can't be fixed once you escort out all the flag officers and colonels in the building and start over. If you watch more of his interview with Shawn Ryan, you'll come to understand he is Kurt's brother from a different mother.  On my Duane's World podcast, on my Aftershow podcasts I used to do for years in Hugh Hewitt's subscriber site, The Hughniverse, I've long pined for the next Republican administration, whomever was at the top of the ticket, to send people into all the federal agencies, but especially DOD, State, and the Department of Justice, with a scythe and clearcut the buildings like an old growth forest. Pete Hegseth promises to be the needed Grim Reaper for the Pentagon. Yeah, but what does Pete Hegseth know about the world? What are his thoughts on how to restructure the military? Is he an isolationist? Nope. He seems to see the world just as clearly as Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor nominee Michael Waltz, and CIA Director nominee John Ratcliffe.  Sounds like he sees China as the biggest threat we face, and that it's high time we retool the Defense Department to meet that rising challenge. So why did Donald Trump pick Hegseth? Why not someone with a little more executive experience? The reason Trump picked him became crystal clear when I went back and watched part of his address to CPAC in 2021.  He understands clearly the problems most people concerned with Defense recognize - the sclerosis, the crumbled industrial base, the lack of readiness, the infection of wokeism, and he's bringing a 20-year warrior mentality to bear on those problems to eradicate it like the enemy it is. Hegseth is an exceptional communicator. Any problems we have currently with recruitment and/or retainment of military personnel will end when he assumes the office. He resonates the American military ethos that is so attractive to our country's best and brightest. As a good, good friend of mine in the national security world told me last night, the Hegseth pick will be one or the other. It'll either be absolutely brilliant, or it'll be a train wreck. I'm optimistic that it'll be the former, and I'll give you three reasons why. Andrew C. McCarthy, former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, a staple on Fox News as one of their legal affairs contributors, and a go-to source for all things legal at National Review, offered up this endorsement of Pete Hegseth. ]]>