Bizarre outbursts at the press, a backstory full of mishaps \u2013 the US \u2018secretary of war\u2019 earns his keep as the loyalty hire par excellence<\/p>\n
Has there ever been a more ludicrous political character than Pete Hegseth, the US government\u2019s so-called secretary of war, who makes Ronald Reagan look understated and urbane? Last week, Hegseth launched an attack on the American press for its coverage of Iran, which he called insufficiently \u201cpatriotic\u201d. (A CNN commentator and former Republican congressman came back with<\/a> \u201cpunk\u201d and \u201ccry baby\u201d to describe Hegseth\u2019s own demeanour.) When he stands at the podium with his Mr Incredible jaw and head extended, turtle-like, way out in front of his body, all you can think is this: which is a greater threat to American national security, Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions or Hegseth\u2019s failure to meet even the most entry-level requirements for a person in his position?<\/p>\n The majority of Americans who know who he is \u2013 only about 70% of them, according to a recent survey<\/a> by the Pew Research Center \u2013 don\u2019t like the guy, and his petulant outbursts last week at the Pentagon can\u2019t have helped. Since Donald Trump appointed him in January last year, what has become evident about Hegseth is that, like so many bullies, he backs down sharpish if he meets any significant pushback. \u201cJennifer, you\u2019ve been about the worst,\u201d snapped Hegseth<\/a> to a Fox News reporter last June in a phrase we should all have had printed on T-shirts. (Jennifer Griffin elegantly countered \u201cI take issue with that,\u201d and Hegseth backed away and pivoted to another point.)<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bizarre outbursts at the press, a backstory full of mishaps \u2013 the US \u2018secretary of war\u2019 earns his keep as the loyalty hire par excellence Has there ever been a more ludicrous political character than Pete Hegseth, the US government\u2019s so-called secretary of war, who makes Ronald Reagan look understated and urbane? Last week, Hegseth … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}