Congressional sideshow

By: Greg Maresca

 

Too often the only thing Senate confirmation hearings reveal is pretense and hypocrisy.  Most memorable was when Sen. Ted Kennedy, who left a woman to drown to salvage his political career sat in judgment of Supreme Court nominee, Clarence Thomas.  Kennedy’s tag team partner then was none other than Joe Biden.  In more recent times, there was the confirmation hatchet job of another Supreme Court Justice, Brett Kavanaugh.  

 

Enter Pete Hegseth, a former National Guard Colonel. and a Princeton and Harvard graduate, who is President Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense.

 

The Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee grilled Hegseth because he wants to “bring the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense” and where “warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards and readiness” would be a priority and how “the strength of our military is our unity — our shared purpose — not our differences.”   

 

A warrior ethos – as it should be.

 

Naturally, such machismo galled Democrats, who then took turns raking Hegseth over the personal coals about past allegations of improper behavior. They were more interested in hearing themselves talk than getting answers.  After all, Hegseth has never worn a dress unlike Biden’s Assistant Secretary for Health, Rachel Levine.

 

Hegseth’s confirmation hearing and the “politics of personal destruction” is the Democrats’ game plan when you can’t win a real, substantial, political argument.  You attack on “character” issues as a means of distracting from the substance of the hearing.  These purveyors are experts at discrediting their opponents for failing to meet their woke pieties. It is the only weapon in their arsenal.

 

In tattooed America, Hegseth was even questioned about one of his – the Jerusalem Cross.  An overt Democrat swipe at Christianity.  An unfazed Hegseth noted that just days before on the front page of former Democrat President Jimmy Carter’s funeral program was the same – Jerusalem Cross.  

 

A touché moment if there ever was one.  

 

What I wasn’t expecting was when Hegseth exposed America’s general glut.  

 

Who knew?

 

“We won World War II with seven 4-star generals, today, we have 44.” 

 

Despite the military being its own Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) ecosystem under the last two Democrat presidential administrations, it has failed to improve our warfighting capability. Rather, it has resulted in recruitment and retention shortages.  

Under the Trump administration, the Department of Defense will no longer be a laboratory for social experimentation and an ATM machine for private military contractors.  This has made the layers of anchored bureaucratic inertia of “the experienced class” a very annoyed bunch.  They are the same collection of experts who lost Afghanistan to a cluster of 15th century equestrian terrorists.  

 

Character assassination techniques that comprise the politics of destruction is all Democrats have. Hegseth had to endure four hours of three angry Democrat women (are there any other kind?) … four if you count Tim Kaine.

 

None wanted to debate the essence and reality of what Hegseth represents — a leaner, unwoke, more lethal and disciplined military under a confident leader not held hostage to the status quo.

 

The Pentagon needs a major overhaul thanks to a four-year tenure of a senile president, an AWOL defense secretary and a gang of cowed Biden subordinates.

 

Still not convinced, 145 Democrats voted against a bill that would deport illegals who commit sex crimes, while all but two voted to keep men out of women’s sports underscoring how Democrats hate America and especially loathe its military.   

 

In a parting salute to the Navy, Biden said their next aircraft carrier will be named after Bill Clinton. You would think something that big and full of seamen would be aptly named the USS Monica Lewinsky.

 

These hearings consistently accentuate the hollow banality of an out-of-touch party wandering through the political wilderness where grandstanding and political pandering highlights their obtuseness. In so doing, any future Congressional hearings with Democrats will require a safe space, assorted crayons and coloring books. 

 

Call it the Hegseth Rule.

 

Unfortunately, hearings like these have devolved into personal innuendo and partisan politics rather than conducting a serious inquiry about America’s needs.

 

It is not just a national embarrassment but an international one.

 

The decay of Congress parallels the decline in society.

 

Yet, we wonder why so many refuse to get involved in politics.