Naval Gazing
During a war with a current focus that has been dialed in on a body of water, Pete Hegseth fired the Secretary of the Navy, who had zero Naval experience when appointed. He’ll be replaced by a guy with a lot of Naval experience and also a lot of experience being a rabid partisan with sometimes fully crazy ideas. Does it ever feel like we are a nation adrift? This news broke on Wednesday, and by Thursday, it had already floated out of the headlines, and military personnel decisions are unlikely to move the needle when it comes to voting trends or approval ratings. American voters have always been more about navel gazing than Naval gazing. But it does seem like it’s worth pausing long enough to reflect on the fact that outgoing Navy Secretary John Phelan, the latest in a series of people squeezed out by Hegseth, “had not served in the military or had a civilian leadership role in the service before Trump nominated him for secretary in late 2024. He was seen as an outsider being brought in to shake up the Navy.” (Well, mission accomplished, I suppose.) And the new acting Secretary of the Navy? Well… “Hung Cao warned of rampant ‘witchcraft’ in a California city while running for a U.S. Senate seat in Virginia two years ago as a Republican. Cao, a 25-year Navy combat veteran who lost to Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in the 2024 election, said he was running for Senate in part to prevent witchcraft from establishing a foothold in Virginia.” (I actually hope witchcraft establishes a foothold in America. Maybe they can make news headlines disappear.)
+ NYT (Gift Article): Navy Secretary Is Fired as Infighting Roils Pentagon.
+ The cabinet members haven’t lost the faith. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum just explained the Iran situation: “Brilliant on President Trump’s part. The world is already a safer place than it was two months ago, thanks to President Trump, and I’m super optimistic about where the world is gonna be going coming out the backside of this.” (The world coming out the backside is actually a perfect description for this era.)
