Is there a heart somewhere inside Kristi Noem, underneath all those costumes, behind all that lacquer? She makes no attempt to show it. Whether killing an inconvenient dog or slandering Minnesotans gunned down by federal agents, she picks cruelty over compassion — and, sadly, seems to equate that choice with strength.
Does she have a pinch, even a grain, of modesty? She spent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on advertisements for, well, Kristi Noem. That seemed to peeve the president. From his underlings he expects compliments, not competition.
But another, less colorful trait of Noem’s should have disturbed him — and should unsettle us — even more, because it’s the root of so much of what’s wrong with Trump’s White House: an explanation of its dysfunctions, a key to its disgraces, a signal to the world of how fickle and foolish America has become. She’s unprofessional.
During her mercifully terminated stint as the homeland security secretary, she made extravagant claims without much if any attempt to ascertain their veracity. She used government resources in questionable ways. She treated public service as private amusement. That’s not how true professionals behave. But it’s how many senior officials in the Trump administration do.
And it’s a big part of my and many other observers’ profound apprehensions about the military strikes in Iran. We can’t trust that they got the degree of deliberation that war demands. We can’t assume temperance, reflection, rationality. Those hallmarks of professionalism aren’t values to which the Trump administration subscribes.
It’s a twisted culture, its warp and warts evident not only in the shenanigans at federal departments that routinely draw scrutiny but also in the melodrama at those that typically don’t. The inspector general for the Department of Labor, for example, is investigating allegations of professional misconduct by its leader, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and several of her top aides. Chavez-DeRemer has been accused of using department resources for personal trips (something Noem is said to have done, too), having an affair with a member of her security detail (hold on to that thought), taking department workers to strip clubs (is this the new morale-building?) and drinking alcohol on the job.
Oh, and her husband, Dr. Shawn DeRemer, has been barred from the department’s offices because at least two women who work there have accused him of sexual assault (which he has denied).
Wild as all of that sounds, it’s actually a Trump-administration leitmotif.
In The Wall Street Journal last month, Michelle Hackman, Josh Dawsey and Tarini Parti wrote that Trump frequently wondered what was going on between Noem and one of her senior aides, Corey Lewandowski, who have repeatedly confronted questions about their conspicuous closeness.
“Lewandowski and Noem, who are both married, have publicly denied the reports of an affair, but people said they do little to hide their relationship inside the department,” The Journal article explained, adding: “The pair have lately been using a luxury 737 Max jet, with a private cabin in back, for their travel around the country, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Sounds comfy. And … familiar. Fancy trips, airborne love, unconventional doings with the security detail: It’s so very Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, who timed a recent, government-funded excursion to Italy to coincide with the Winter Olympics, where he guzzled beer and whooped it up with the American hockey team after its victory over Canada. On many flights he’s accompanied by his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, “one of the best-protected country music singers in the United States,” as my Times colleague Elizabeth Williamson wrote recently in a triumph of understatement.
“F.B.I. tactical agents have ferried her to a resort in Britain before a dinner at Windsor Castle and to an appointment at a hair salon in Nashville,” Williamson continued. “Last April, agents in two S.U.V.s stood guard outside a senior center in Ronald Reagan’s boyhood home of Dixon, Ill., while she sang for a few dozen young conservatives.” I hope they enjoyed the concert.
There’s a tendency to talk of Noem, Patel and their perk-minded compatriots as grifters. The appellation certainly fits. It’s tempting to focus on the inadequate experience and kooky beliefs of flamboyant strivers — from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence — whom Trump has elevated to the top tiers of government.
But that obscures and gives short shrift to their fundamental sloppiness, selfishness, disregard for proper procedure, evasion of accountability. They simply don’t do their jobs — or at least don’t do them earnestly, maturely and competently.
That was clear early on, when the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, used the messaging app Signal for a group chat that discussed sensitive military information, then dismissed any complaints about that cavalierly — an adverb that, when coupled with spitefully, covers about 99 percent of his behavior.
It’s clear when lawyers for the Justice Department — Alina Habba, Lindsey Halligan, Jeanine Pirro — have their cases thrown out or their appointments voided. When their boss, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, shows up at a congressional hearing with a crude cheat sheet filled with puerile insults. When Patel takes to social media to crow about developments in prominent investigations that turn out to be dead ends. When a major report released by a commission under Kennedy cites an array of nonexistent studies. When he or other members of Trump’s cabinet capriciously fire or haphazardly hire people for important positions.
I’m sure these administration officials deem professionalism overrated, outdated, an enemy of necessary disruption, a brake on real genius. It’s for slowpokes and prudes. It’s fussiness for fussiness’s sake.
Wrong. Professionalism recognizes that your job is bigger than you are. It rightly regards teamwork and discipline as handmaidens of accomplishment. It understands that a sturdy institution requires a code of conduct. And it sweats details, because if you get enough of those wrong, you get nothing at all right.
Noem, to be fair, sweated details — about her itinerary, her apparel, her accessories. But about the violence against Americans in cities that her armed agents flooded? She couldn’t be bothered. She had a plane to catch.
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For the Love of Sentences
In The Philadelphia Inquirer, David Murphy marveled at the baseball player Bryce Harper’s ease getting on base but difficulty scoring runs: “Not since E.T. have we seen someone with such otherworldly attributes struggle this hard to get home.” (Thanks to Bill Quinn of Malvern, Pa., for nominating this.)
In The Boston Globe, Billy Baker cursed Route 1 North as a “stretch of Massachusetts mayhem,” reserving special antipathy “for the adventure that is technically called the Northeast Expressway, but only because Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is copyrighted.” (Stephanie Seacord, Newfields, N.H.)
In Slate, Sam Adams made an exception to his usual disapproval of films with punctuation marks in their titles: “Maggie Gyllenhaal’s ‘The Bride!’ earns its exclamation point like no movie since ‘Moulin Rouge!’ Narrated by the wayward ghost of Mary Shelley, Gyllenhaal’s loopy, overstuffed fable is maddeningly uneven and just plain mad, in both the furious and off-its-rocker sense. I liked it more than any movie I’ve also considered walking out of.” (Steven McCarthy, Troy, N.Y.)
In The Guardian, Dave Schilling considered an icy spectacle that has received more attention than usual lately: “Ah, hockey. The most impish of sports. A bunch of blissfully beefy individuals wearing colorful sweaters zoom around in skates chasing a wee little object called, of all things, a ‘puck.’ It’s adorable. It’s like ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ for people missing teeth.” (Janet Helgeson, Bexley, Ohio)
In The Times, Wesley Morris argued that the real appeal of the hit television series “Heated Rivalry,” set in the world of professional hockey, isn’t the sex: “The talking is the strength of the show. On the one hand, big deal. Men have never been doing more talking. They’re talking so much that we now refer to that talking as the manosphere, meaning that the chat has achieved a degree of gaseousness that only earth science can name.” (Bill Dunlop, Auburn, Ala.)
Also in The Times, Margaret Renkl described the sandhill cranes in an Alabama wildlife refuge: “Gathering by the tens of thousands, they talk to one another continuously in a joyous burbling call that always makes me think an odd sort of marching band is tuning up, with instruments I don’t recognize.” (Michael Patterson, Harrisburg, Pa., and Mark Upham, Ossineke, Mich., among others)
W.J. Hennigan pondered the prickliness of a member of Trump’s cabinet: “For a guy who calls himself the secretary of war, Pete Hegseth sure is defensive.” (Alan Stamm, Birmingham, Mich.)
And Maureen Dowd chronicled the, ahem, war secretary’s intersection with artificial intelligence: “A.I. is a teenager now, roaring into the world, testing limits, rebelling against authority, itching to usurp the old guard and remake the planet in its image. Unfortunately, Pete Hegseth is also a teenager. His hormones are raging; his judgment is shaky. Like a repentant frat boy, he had to promise the adults in the Senate that he wouldn’t drink while he is in charge of the military and its 12-figure budget.” (Gwen Harvey, Portland, Ore., and Gary N. Rowe, Rock Island, Ill.)
In a post on X, Sean Davis, the chief executive of The Federalist, made fun of many Republicans’ tortured efforts not to call the attack on Iran by a certain three-letter word: “It’s not a war unless it comes from the war region of France, otherwise it’s just sparkling combat.” (Kim Addonizio, Oakland, Calif., and Brad Goldstein, Hawthorn Woods, Ill., among many, many others)
In The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait wondered about Trump’s focus and coherence amid his shifting explanations for military strikes against Iran: “The president’s strategy seems more sundown than Sun Tzu.” (Ben Rooks, Barcelona, and Debby Wagner, Louisville, Ky., among others)
Also in The Atlantic, Graeme Wood complimented Pete Buttigieg for being “one of the few Democrats capable of talking to Republicans and not sounding like he loathed them,” a skill that “should be basic to the Democratic tool kit but is now unusual, like the ability to spin plates or play the zither.” And yet, Wood noted, Buttigieg has quirks: “Every candidate hopes to be the guy you want to have a beer and talk football with. Buttigieg can do a very convincing impression of that guy, but deep down he is the candidate you want to sit down and have Somali camel stew with while you banter about Arabic verb forms.” (Stanlynn Daugherty, Joseph, Ore., and Nina Salamon, Branford, Conn., among others)
And Charles Yu responded to a recent boast by Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, that Chat GPT-5 is a Ph.D.-level expert in everything: “The achievement of a degree does not cover, does not even purport to touch, emotional intelligence. What is a Ph.D. in reading the room? In teaching your kid to ride a bike? In crying because you were moved by a piece of music? We consider elephants intelligent because they mourn their dead. What is a Ph.D. in grief, awe, wonder, curiosity?” (Kevin Garrett, Brooklyn)
To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here and include your name and place of residence.
On a Personal (by Which I Mean Regan) Note
Do our dogs suffer us?
We like to think of them as reliable geysers of almost unconditional love — and much of the time, they gush accordingly. They sulk when we’re leaving the house without them. They exult upon our return, even if it’s all of 90 seconds later.
We say “come” and they … seriously consider it. We say “treat” and they hurry, their fidelity rekindled, their gratitude burning bright.
So it goes with Regan.
But there’s another side to her, one that finds me intrusive, annoying, needy. She’ll whip her head around and glare at me when I disturb her sleep by getting into or out of bed too noisily. If I pet her at a moment when that wasn’t on her wish list, she’ll make a harrumphing sound, and while an animal behaviorist will surely write in to tell me that it means something complicated and atavistic having to do with wolves and packs and yadda yadda yadda, I assure you: She’s simply scolding me. Telling me that I should learn to keep my paws to myself. Threatening me with a timeout.
On a walk in the woods, she’ll come to an abrupt stop if I take one fork of a trail and she prefers the other, and her bearing — erect, utterly still, eyes drilling a hole into my noncompliant soul — is that of a queen outraged at the denial of her royal prerogative. Her pique is so persuasive that 40 percent of the time, I relent. We go her way. The other 60 percent, we go mine. One of us must be the alpha, and I pay the kibble bill.
I’m not the only one who exasperates her. My friend Kerry was visiting the other day and babbling at her about one thing or another when she clearly wanted some quiet time. She rolled her eyes at him, or at least seemed to.
He snapped a shot. It’s above. And it’s a reminder: They’re animals, not automatons. Pooches, not puppets. Their adoration of us has limits; their indulgence of us, boundaries. They crave our attention, our affection, our scraps. But they’d like to preserve a shred of their dignity.
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