I quit drinking almost five years ago, otherwise I’d be writing this column blind drunk after watching yesterday’s revolting performance from Pete Hegseth in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Instead, I’m blind with outrage and disgust at the pithiness of the pathetic Hegseth.
In between boasting about his own non-existent accomplishments, he had the temerity to take a swipe at his predecessor. He said, in essence, that he had no idea what Lloyd Austin actually did as Secretary of Defense.
Well, allow me to help, you miserable excuse for a “war” secretary.
Lloyd Austin didn’t launch an unnecessary war with Iran, one that now carries a staggering price tag in dollars and, more gravely, in American lives, and that barely a third of the country supports. Hegseth did.
Austin didn’t install a make-up studio in the Pentagon. He didn’t rename the Department of Defense, a name that has stood since 1949, to the jarringly regressive “Department of War.” He didn’t post sensitive military plans on a commercial social media app.
He didn’t churn out vanity workout videos for public consumption while American service members were in harm’s way. He didn’t put out gaming videos with montages that spliced Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto gameplay footage with real military strikes
He didn’t cancel promotions for qualified Black and female soldiers. He didn’t try to push out trans soldiers or put targets on the backs of gay and lesbian soldiers. He didn’t demand testosterone tests from the officer corps. He didn’t stand in front of a room full of generals and berate them.
Hegseth has done all of it.
And perhaps most damning: unlike Hegseth, who at this week’s hearing could not even offer an accurate accounting of the dead and wounded, Austin never forgot the human cost of the office he held.
Hegseth is so deplorable that, according to Eric Schmitt’s New York Times story, the Pentagon withheld reports of dozens of nonfatal injuries from the public, bringing the total of wounded U.S. service members to over 400 in the Iran conflict. His reporting indicates a significant lag in official tracking, with numerous troops sustaining severe wounds requiring advanced care
In fact, Lloyd Austin did so, so, so much more, and accomplished so, so much more than Hegseth could ever dream about.
Austin is a retired four-star general who spent 41 years in uniform. He was the first Black officer to lead an Army corps into combat, the first African American to head U.S. Central Command, and ultimately the first Black Secretary of Defense in American history.
In 2003, he earned the Silver Star for his leadership during the invasion of Baghdad. As defense secretary, he built and sustained the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a coalition of more than 50 nations that has kept a besieged democracy in the fight against Russian aggression. He drove a strategic pivot toward the Indo-Pacific to counter China.
He oversaw sweeping reform of the military justice system, stripping the chain of command of its grip on sexual assault prosecutions. He managed the logistics of a nationwide vaccine rollout that kept the force operationally ready through a pandemic.
Pete Hegseth’s highest rank, by contrast, was major in the Army National Guard.
Hegseth doesn’t even have a slight fraction of Austin’s judgment or discipline in the job. Austin held regular press conferences. Hegseth hasn’t faced one since May, and he has been working to push reporters out of the Pentagon altogether rather than answer for his record.
Austin was deferential to Congress and to career Pentagon personnel; Hegseth treats both as dog do-do. Austin was trusted by allies who had spent decades relying on American steadiness. Hegseth is, by wide and growing consensus among those same allies, a source of embarrassment and laughter. Unfortunately, that is reflected in the military that is serving underneath him.
But the starkest contrast is human.
Lloyd Austin made a practice, not a photo-op, of showing up for the families of the fallen. He was a regular presence at Arlington National Cemetery. He took part in dignified transfers. He personally called the families of service members killed overseas, including after the 2024 drone strike in Jordan that killed three American soldiers.
He spoke, publicly and often, about the obligation to remember that every name on a memorial wall belonged to a person with a story.
At this week’s hearing, Pete Hegseth did not mention the troops killed or wounded on his watch. He was too busy insisting his predecessor had done nothing.
Lloyd Austin left the Pentagon with the respect of allies, the trust of Congress, and a record any general would envy. Pete Hegseth is leaving a trail of scandals, an enormously unpopular war, a demoralized officer corps, and a growing list of questions he refuses to answer.
He said he doesn’t know what Austin did. That’s because Pete Hegseth is doing everything atrociously wrong.
The post This pathetic parasite dared denigrate a military giant — and debased only himself appeared first on Raw Story.
