As Pete Hegseth faced the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday as President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, his opening remarks reminded everyone that America is not only a bastion of evangelical Christianity, but a land where redemption and renewal are shared experiences by so many who have been overwhelmed by the storms of life.
“Thank you to my incredible wife Jennifer, who has changed my life and been with me throughout this entire process. I love you, sweetheart, and I thank God for you. And as Jenny and I pray together each morning, all glory — regardless of the outcome — belongs to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His grace and mercy abound each day. May His will be done.”
It’s not so much whether one has had a past of iniquity so much as whether one has sought forgiveness and seeks to make amends. Hegseth sincerely and effectively presented himself as that man before the committee, even as his testimony was interrupted three times by incoherent protesters and he was inundated with questions by hypocritical senators who feigned shock about divorce and drinking in the military.
Yes, for these senators, there could be no redemption, no forgiveness, no future for a wicked former Army officer who had never belonged to the right clubs. For them, this was an INQUISITION reminiscent of the one that started in Spain some centuries ago. There was no torture but the same outrage that Hegseth did not belong to the woke church, refused to embrace the DEI theology and then would not confess to any of this.
There’s an old riddle that explains how a person’s personal strengths or weaknesses often have little bearing on his or her suitability for public office. There are two candidates to choose from on this imaginary ballot. One is a non-smoking, vegetarian, teetotaler who also happens to be a decorated war hero. Opposing him is a man who is a suspected alcoholic, a chronic smoker and a whimsical politician who has switched his party allegiance two times.
Of course the first man is Adolf Hitler, the abstemious veteran who was awarded the Iron Cross, first and second class. The second is Winston Churchill, the brandy swilling, cigar-smoking politician who crossed the floor from the Conservatives to the Liberals and then back again.
It is not even necessary to remind readers that Hitler is remembered as a mass murderer and war criminal while Churchill is still considered – despite some recent bad press – as the greatest man of the twentieth century, some personal failings be damned.
Democrats and the mainstream media have almost exclusively discussed alleged personal failings in their assessment of Hegseth’s viability as defense secretary. They have rattled off the divorces, the infidelities, the drinking stories, the alleged sexual assault and even the supposed outrage of having made millions of dollars from his books.
They have not examined his military career nor why it is necessary to put a rank and file officer precisely like Hegseth in charge of the military in order to squeeze the wokeness and DEI obsession from the US armed forces. There have been plenty of generals and career politicians leading the Department of Defense over the last three decades who have demonstrated sober, even saintly, lives but who have done nothing to protect the military from the internal rot that has hollowed it out and left it as a laboratory for social experimentation.
These men have spent their lives ensuring that their careers came first and they happily embraced the ideological whims of the day because they wanted to play it safe and not appear reactionary. These men have failed the military because they were more interested in appeasing and pleasing the hegemonic left-wing establishment in Washington. Operational effectiveness was always a distant second-thought to political correctness.
Hegseth defined his proposed role in the US military as bringing “the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense. He, like me, wants a Pentagon laser-focused on warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness. That's it. That is my job.”
Hegseth promised to “reestablish trust in our military — and address the recruiting, retention and readiness crisis in our ranks. The strength of our military is our unity — our shared purpose — not our differences.” He suggested the primary objective of the armed forces will be to “defend our homeland — our borders and our skies.”
“The Defense Department under Donald Trump will achieve peace through strength. And in pursuing these America First national security goals, will remain patriotically apolitical and stridently Constitutional. Unlike the current administration, politics should play no part in military matters. We are not Republicans, we are not Democrats — we are American warriors. Our standards will be high, and they will be equal (not equitable, that is a very different word)."
"We need to make sure every warrior is fully qualified on their assigned weapon system, every pilot's fully qualified and current on the aircraft they are flying, and every general or flag officer is selected for leadership or promotion based purely on performance, readiness, and merit.”
Hegseth vociferously tried to differentiate his resume from other defense secretaries. “It is true that I don't have a similar biography to Defense Secretaries of the last 30 years. But, as President Trump also told me, we've repeatedly placed people atop the Pentagon with supposedly ‘the right credentials’ — whether they are retired generals, academics, or defense contractor executives — and where has it gotten us? He believes, and I humbly agree, that it's time to give someone with dust on his boots the helm. A change agent. Someone with no vested interest in certain companies or specific programs or approved narratives.”
Democrats, beginning with ranking committee member Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), put Hegseth through hell with their questions, which seemed to get more personal and more about sex – what else can you expect in Washington – with each successive interrogator. Reed actually suggested that Hegseth’s opposition to DEI would reverse DoD policy relating to the racial integration of the armed forces under President Harry Truman. Hegseth countered that argument by pointing out the difference between equality and equity. In his opening remarks, Reed flatly told Hegseth, “I do not believe that you are qualified” to be defense secretary.
The worst moments – not necessarily for Hegseth but for the committee meeting – came under Hillary Clinton’s former running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who, with the unruly white hair of a mad scientist, only wanted to talk about sex and spurious domestic abuse allegations and did so in the most flagrantly, smirking manner, getting into details about Hegseth’s indiscretions like he had just heard the stories in the men’s room.
“You have admitted that you had sex while you were married to wife two, after you had just fathered a child by wife three. You've admitted that now, if it had been a sexual assault that would be disqualifying to be Secretary of Defense, wouldn't it? If it had been a sexual assault that would be disqualifying to be Secretary of Defense, wouldn't it?” Kaine badgered Hegseth. Before going into overtime, Kaine painted the defense secretary nominee as a chronic drunk who was fond of bringing his colleagues to any available strip club.
It was left to Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) to highlight just how ludicrous this cross-examination was. "How many senators have showed up drunk to vote at night? Have any of you guys asked them to step down and resign from their job? And don't tell me you haven't seen it, because I know you have, and then how many senators do you know who got a divorce for cheating on their wives? Did you ask them to step down? No. But it's for show ... It's so ridiculous that you guys show yourself to a higher standard," he told his Democratic colleagues.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a woman who lied about her indigenous ancestry for most of her political career, suggested Hegseth was an obnoxious misogynist who was planning for a job in the defense industry.
This was perhaps the most stressful morning of Hegseth’s life – worse than anything he has experienced on the battlefield, in uniform or hosting Fox News. He made it because he kept the mission in mind. He remembered the objective. A prediction: Hegseth will be confirmed.
