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The Pete Hegseth hearings — 10 Comments

  1. If I were in charge – would use a little Lawfare and make voting against confirming Pete Hegseth a Capital Crime.

    Have watched some…Pocahontas Warren – loved her brief choking silence after Pete told her he wasn’t a General 🙂 but would not be able to watch another DEM question him…

  2. Pete acquitted himself rather well, I think, so well done and godspeed. Perhaps Sen. Fetterman will see fit to “aye” this vote. As to the rest of his party — it’s doubtful. But we’ll see.

  3. Saw one dem trying to get Pete to agree torture was okay.
    Pete was talking about Rules of Engagement. Stuff like the RoE at Extortion One Seven which cost us thirty-six dead. And at Abbey Gate, thirteen KIA and fifty-some wounded.
    “just wounded”. Back in the day, watching old cowboy movies, my father would mutter what I presume now were obscenities when some guy, shot in the shoulder, would clap his hand to the wounded shoulder with a tablespoon of ketchup in his palm. No. There are quad amps and paraplegics and guys with their faces shot off. In the hospital, you learn not to look at the parents’ faces.
    Marine sniper had eyes on the suicide vehicle, many requests for clearance to shoot, nothing.
    When in the Army, I ran into a guy who’d lost half his platoon to such restrictions. And we’re the bad guys.
    The dem questioner knew this and tried to deflect to torture, or he didn’t know. .In either case, he’s not worth his next…
    Somebody stop me.

  4. I watched it all. Major political theater. The Democrats were uniformly antagonistic. Pete acquitted himself well. I would not have been able to stay as unruffled as he seemed.

    Is he qualified? Is anybody actually qualified to be Sec Def? It’s a huge job with many moving parts. Anyone who has held it has had to rely on an army of subordinates and advisors to guide him. Pete knows this, and his strong desire to put the mission of combat lethality foremost will make a huge difference in getting our military back on track. I hope he’s confirmed.

  5. I think that one real takeaway from this hearing was the fact that the female Democrat Senators revealed their true characters by the questions they asked, how they behaved, and the tone of their questions, and it wasn’t pretty.

  6. Streiff had a good wrap-up of today’s hearing, in addition to his “this is what to look for” post before it began. His forecasting held up well, and he made a lot of important points about why the Democrats’ major complaints are not valid ones.

    https://redstate.com/streiff/2025/01/14/pete-hegseths-confirmation-hearing-starts-in-30-minutes-this-is-what-you-need-to-know-n2184315

    He covered most of the exchanges that have made the sound-bites playlist, and a couple which haven’t.

    https://redstate.com/streiff/2025/01/14/pete-hegseth-brings-his-a-game-and-gets-the-job-done-n2184351

    It is difficult to get away from the feeling that the Democrats knew they had nothing to stop him, so they resorted to smearing him as much as possible before he takes office.

    Hegseth came across weakest on the complaint that he’d refused to engage in one-on-one meetings with any of the Democrats other than the ranking member. His reason for doing so was obvious. The substance of any conversation would be lied about or distorted, and the conversation would give the Democrats a chance to test how he would respond to questions. Hegseth unconvincingly passed this off as “scheduling conflicts” because you can’t very well try to come across as bipartisan while revealing that you don’t trust the Democrats.

    I wish he’d been stronger on the subject of post-service employment by a Defense contractor. Had Warren not been so eager to score points, she might have inflicted some damage.

    Hegseth got a lot of help from the Republican side, with Oklahoma’s Markwayne Mullin delivering the hardest blow.

    MUST WATCH: Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s FULL remarks in defense of Pete Hegseth. Powerful. Absolute masterclass. pic.twitter.com/sr2ugX4T6Y

    — Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) January 14, 2025
    You have to listen to this to fully appreciate it.

    In terms of optics, Hegseth was polite, responsive, and telegenic. He was able to successfully filibuster during some particularly nasty personal attacks and not look flustered or angry. In terms of intelligence, he may very well have been one of the two or three smartest guys in the room. He was not some weary, gray little man looking for that final big job before landing the seven or eight-figure corporate board sinecure; Hegseth came across as a man who can bring the warrior ethos back to the Pentagon. He successfully packaged (in my view) his past personal troubles as a redemption story. I think he was able to distinguish between his respect for women serving in the Armed Forces and his antipathy toward them serving in direct combat units. I came away believing that with the right deputies and service secretaries, Hegseth just might be able to undo 16 years of damage.

    Bottom line: Hegseth did what he needed to do to get committee approval though that approval will probably be on a very rigid party line. He may lose a Republican in the floor vote (looking at Utah’s John Curtis), and I think we can count on Lisa Murkowski voting with the Democrats. Worst casing it, JD Vance will have to break a tie.

    And in re the complaints about him being a super-terrorist (aka Christian) because tattoos!

    https://accordingtohoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/phcross.jpeg?w=641

    As for “politicizing the military” (which the Democrats have done to the extreme, but they insist that doesn’t count if THEY do it, only if someone wants to unravel their disasters), maybe we need some changes in priorities:
    https://accordingtohoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/wounded.png?w=640

    And the last word goes to the Babylon Bee.
    https://accordingtohoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/20250109_145713.jpg?w=749

  7. Aesopfan, thanks for the Babylon Bee link. Got a good laugh!
    (And to avoid spoiling it for others, I’ll be vague in this bit, by using just a pronoun.)
    They are said to be the pitbulls of the dwarfs!
    Lol!

  8. They lost the last election because they—PROUDLY—showed themselves to be shameless, mendacious, outrageous hysterical apparatchiks.**

    The lessons they learned from this defeat:
    be even MORE shameless, MORE mendacious, MORE outrageous, MORE hysterical apparatchiks.

    MORE DISGUSTING.

    One wouldn’t have believed that it were possible.

    One would have been wrong.

    ** Which would already have been well known to anyone paying attention (or not totally brainwashed), particularly after the Kavanaugh atrocity…but of course even far before that odious chapter in Congressional history.

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