Raw Story: Opinion: National security served up by a dry drunk

[Dennis Donovan]

Raw Story - (archived: https://archive.ph/sKZdN ) Opinion: National security served up by a dry drunk

Sabrina Haake
March 29, 2025 6:50AM ET

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“Angry lack of personal growth” should be tattooed on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s forehead. Following the Signal fiasco, when Hegseth got off the plane at the Pearl Harbor-Hickam base in Honolulu, (coincidentally where my dad was stationed), a reporter asked him about the Signal breach, specifically, how an editor from The Atlantic was added to a chat about attacking Houthis in Yemen.

Hegseth spewed outrage, as if concern for servicemembers whose lives he put at risk infringed his right to breathe. He jacked up and down on his heels, leered forward and scrunched his face, going in for the pre-emptive attack: “So you’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who (has) made a profession of pedaling hoaxes time and time again.” He looked away from the camera, indignant, looked back, flexed his shoulders like a boxer in the ring and said, “(The editor of The Atlantic) is a guy who peddles in garbage. This is what he does.”

After a few more insults, he segued into victimhood: “You see, we’ve been dealing with four years of deferred maintenance (from Biden).” He left unsaid that the attacks failed to achieve their only goal: deterring the terrorist group, which means Houthis are still launching near-daily missiles at Israel, and most shipping traffic is still being redirected.

Hegseth closed with an adamant declaration, disproved when the chat transcript was released, that, “NOBODY was texting war plans and that’s all I have to say.” With that, he turned and walked away from his personal version of my father’s hell: a flock of blue birds chirping with microphones.

Hegseth needs treatment, not command of the world’s most lethal force

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[Irish_Dem]

1. He is not a dry drunk. He sounds drunk in his interviews.