A hard call, but there’s a clear winner
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| ©Instagram/Pete Hegseth |
“Patently ridiculous,” Hegseth told reporters, adding — even as the strait’s blockage was proving to be Iran’s most powerful leverage in the war — we “don’t need to worry about it.”
He also denied that
the U.S. bombed the school where some 175 children were killed. Hegseth added
that, as to CNN, “the sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the
better.”
These remarks are remarkably stupid, on several levels.
First, CNN got it absolutely right in reporting that
Trump’s national security team had underestimated Iran’s ability to disrupt
global oil traffic. CNN cited “multiple sources familiar with the matter.”
The New York Times published
a similar story, reporting that in the lead-up to the U.S.-Israeli attack,
“Trump downplayed the risks to the energy markets.”
Even The Wall Street Journal, hardly
a New York Times or CNN clone, substantiated the
story on Friday, reporting that Trump rejected warnings that Iran would likely
retaliate by closing the strait because he believed Iran would capitulate
before doing so, and he assumed that even if Iran tried to close it, the U.S.
military could handle it.
Second, Hegseth’s comment that we “don’t need to worry
about” the blockage of the strait is not only false but flippantly insulting to
an American public that deserves to know what the Trump regime is planning to
do about soaring prices at the gas pump, directly due to that blockage.
Third, even if Hegseth believes that David Ellison’s
ownership of CNN will silence CNN’s critical coverage of Trump, it’s remarkably
stupid of Hegseth to say it out loud. “The sooner David Ellison takes over CNN,
the better” is an open admission that Trump backed Ellison’s bid to acquire
Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent, to silence criticism.
That deal is still pending, so Hegseth’s admission is likely to fuel even more opposition to it. California’s attorney general has already suggested he’ll go to court to block it. Now other attorneys general, the ACLU, and Democrats in Congress may join the case as co-plaintiffs.
Hegseth’s admission also confirms CNN’s worst fears that
Ellison will throttle criticism of Trump — a fear that’s already caused several
leading lights to exit. As Variety put
it, “Anderson, cooped. Jake, tapped. Erin, burnt. Kasie, hunted. Wolf,
blitzed.”
Ellison has already proven himself an unreliable steward of
journalistic independence at CBS News. One departing producer there explained
in a farewell memo to colleagues that she could no longer work where stories
are “evaluated not just on their journalistic merit, but on whether they
conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations — a dynamic that
pressures producers and reporters to self-censor or avoid challenging
narratives that might trigger backlash or unfavorable headlines.”
Finally, Hegseth’s denial that the U.S. is responsible for
the deaths of nearly 200 schoolchildren in Iran is belied by mounting evidence that
the U.S. did bomb the school. Hegseth’s further insistence
that the U.S. “never
targets civilians” is refuted by the U.S. military’s killing of at least
157 people on 40 small boats in the Caribbean without evidence they were
“narcoterrorists” rather than civilians.
And, friends, this was just one news conference.
Pete Hegseth’s job is so far over his head that he can’t
even see it. He evidently believes it’s to cheerlead and defend Trump with
bonkers claims like
“We didn't start this war, but under President Trump we’re finishing it” and
“America is winning decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy” and “we will
show no quarter for our enemies.” (“No quarter” means kill everyone and take no
prisoners, which is a war crime.)
In the days leading up to the U.S. attack on Iran, Hegseth
spent his time criticizing “wokeness” at American universities, feuding with
Anthropic over safeguards for AI, and, in the day before the war began, forcing
Scouting America to abandon programs aimed at promoting diversity.
He dismisses war crimes, pooh-poohs the rules of engagement,
and projects unequivocal belligerence at a time when the United States is
rapidly losing whatever moral standing it had in the world.
Granted, it’s difficult to select one of Trump’s Cabinet
members as the stupidest. But Pete Hegseth stands out for sheer boneheaded
ignorance.
Pray for America and the world.
