Hitting Foggy Bottom

Buck-passing Pete Hegseth argued that he “did not personally see survivors” on the boat that was victim of the now infamous second strike. “The thing was on fire. It exploded, there’s fire, there’s smoke. This is called the fog of war.” He’s close. But it’s not the fog of war. It’s the fog machine of lies. The justification for any strikes in the first place. The need for a second strike. Hegseth’s knowledge of the second strike. It’s lie upon lie upon lie from a Pentagon shamed by an incompetent and terrible person cosplaying as its leader. Trump slept through much of the cabinet meeting, but he woke up long enough to help Hegseth to throw Adm. Frank M. Bradley under the MAGA bus. (I’m not sure Trump is enough of a reader to have noticed the typo on Hegseth’s name card, but man, The SSecretary of War is really doing a lot of work.) NYT (Gift Article): After Decades in Combat, a SEAL Suddenly Comes Under Scrutiny. “He has become a public example of the potential legal peril that the American military faces as it carries out the orders of President Trump and his defense secretary.”

+ Meanwhile, Pentagon’s Signalgate review finds Pete Hegseth violated military regulations. (This finding, along with the highly unusual leak about the second strike, strongly suggests that Hegseth is about as popular in the Pentagon as he is in this newsletter.)

+ Aside from typing some pretty pristine prose, George Will and I don’t have much in common. But we agree on this. “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to be a war criminal. Without a war. An interesting achievement … The killing of the survivors by this moral slum of an administration should nauseate Americans. A nation incapable of shame is dangerous, not least to itself.” WaPo (Gift Article): A sickening moral slum of an administration.