J.R. said:
whiterock said:
Oldbear83 said:
historian said:
J.R. said:
historian said:
Hegseth is more qualified for DoD than ANYONE in the current administration, including Prez, VP, & EVERY member of the cabinet. He was a soldier in combat and actually knows a lot about the military.
are you serious? what you just said just makes no sense.. "he was a soldier in combat and actually knows a lot about the Military. Huh? This statement utterly ridiculous. He is a drunken talk show host. He a financially mismanaged 2 non profits and was fired. So, you think that qualifies him to run the Pentagon? Sorry, but that statement is just laughable.
Maybe you pay too much attention to the fascist propaganda on MSNBC & CNN. Propagandists are notorious for leaving out important details in their reporting. Hegseth was a decorated soldier in the army national guard. He served at Gitmo and saw combat in Iraq & Afghanistan.
I also thought it's hilarious that Jr, who brags so often about his financial knowledge, somehow imagines that the Secretary of Defense is primarily a Controller rather than the guy who drives military strategy and builds the military's ability to fight. You know, the kind of things a combat veteran would be well-suited for. As opposed to, say, someone like Milley, who looks and sounds like he spent a lot more time at parties than in action.
Not that he has no accomplishments - Publisher of the Princeton Tory, BA from Princeton, Master of Public Policy from the JFK School at Harvard, analyst at Bear Stearns, contributor at the Manhattan Institute (think tank), two stints at 501c3s, finalist for Secretary of Veteran Affairs in 2016, contributor on CNN/MSNBC and host at Fox News. Dude keeps rising to the top, even when he stumbles.
Trump wants someone who has kicked out doors to restore warrior culture. To do that, he will need someone who is loyal, courageous, and good communicator. Hegseth is that.
JR regurgitates all the allegations & spin as if they were scrupulous truths, rather than putting rather more weight on the fact that the left always attacks hardest the things it fear most. Fact is, Hegseth is where he is because he's got some skills. He's taking flack because he's over the target. The pertinent question is, are his skills what is needed at the moment. I think so. He is what Trump (and a majority of Americans) want our military to be - a warrior. Who better to lead reforms to rebuild warrior culture? His communication skills will be a big asset. So, yeah. Apt choice. Very logical choice.
Voters are not interested in establishmentarianism. They think establishments are broken....................
I never said Petey didn't have skills. I said he is NOT REMOTELY qualified to run the DOD. Please let us know how he is qualified. I guess you missed the point where he nearly bankrupted those 2 non profits. Running the DOD is hardly being a Controller (bean counter) Being a soldier doesn't count. Enlighten us, please.
His non-profit experience suggests he is not a gifted fundraiser/bean-counter, i.e. the controller function, which your own words clearly indicated is not a job requirement for SecDef. (your critique is logically conflicted, not that such is a surprise.)
If being a soldier does not count as a qualification for SecDef, then that means the current and several prior SecDefs on both sides of the aisle are/were not qualified. I haven't heard you criticize them. We've had some execs at SecDef, too, and the outcomes were, uh, mixed. So it's not exactly like what you appear to be advocating has a materially better record than the soldiers.
As you know, a good hire is a function of matching the right skill set with the the job requirement, which for a SecDef is not defending the institution but rather
implementing what POTUS was elected to accomplish. And we know what is the national security agenda Trump ran on:
--focus on China as adversary #1.
--get the USA out of neverWars.
--get the military out of the cultureWars.
--strengthen traditional alliances (particularly in the Middle East.)
--rebuild warrior culture.
--rebuild inventories of lethal things.
Hegseth seems to be a good fit for that list.
--He agrees that China is the primary adversary, and that neverWars are out of hand.
--He is a warrior who has personally led troops in war, and buried comrades in arms afterwards.
--He has exactly the right positions on culture wars and warrior culture. (ex: no more drag shows at the elementary schools on our military bases, no more DEI nonsense, etc.....)
--He will be the best SecDef in decades in communicating that agenda within the military and to the American people, given his distinguished record in the media.
Sure, many will bloviate rather than analyze soberly, but they'll just miss the rather obvious reasons why Hegseth seems to be a logical choice, given the agenda the American people have ratified in the last election. The job is political, whether you like it or not. And if there is one thing that is clear from his resume, the guy keeps rising to the top in politics.
