Why did the Democrats get creamed? Sherrod Brown can tell you.

 

Why did the Democrats get creamed? Sherrod Brown can tell you.

“I don’t look at politics left and right. It’s who’s on your side.”

December 22, 2024 at 6:30 a.m. ESTToday at 6:30 a.m. EST

 

 

 

It is hard to think of a state that has seen a faster and more dramatic political transformation than Ohio.

 

For more than half a century, the Buckeye State was the quintessential, closely fought bellwether. Until its streak was broken in 2020, it had voted for the presidential election winner a remarkable 14 times straight.

 

Had John F. Kerry taken roughly 60,000 more Ohio votes from George W. Bush in 2004, he would have been president. Four years later, Barack Obama won the state by nearly five percentage points; he did it again in 2012, but by less than half that margin.

Then, Ohio swung hard to Donald Trump and the Republicans — and it has remained there since.

Now, the man who was possibly the last Democrat capable of being elected statewide, Sen. Sherrod Brown, has been defeated and is heading home. Costing half a billion dollars, Brown’s losing battle against Republican Bernie Moreno became the most expensive Senate race in the country. Brown came up about three points short in his quest for a fourth term.

 

Why? Brown says the political shift in his state began with a signal event: the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, the first year of Bill Clinton’s presidency.

 

“Workers have slowly migrated out of the Democratic Party,” he told me. “It accelerated as more and more jobs were lost. And I still heard [about NAFTA] in this campaign, especially in the Miami Valley, Dayton, where we still won, [and] up there in Mahoning Valley, where we didn’t win.”

 

Workers came to view Democrats “as a bicoastal elite party,” he explained. “We were too pro-corporate. They know Republicans are going to shill for corporate interests. They expected Democrats would stand up for them, and they don’t see that nationally.”

Then Trump came along and switched the script, breaking with the GOP’s long-standing free-trade stance to denounce NAFTA and other agreements, promote more protectionist policies and make promises such as ending taxes on overtime. “Republicans are now, for the first time, actually trying to talk to workers,” Brown said.

 

Still, in November, Brown ran more than seven percentage points ahead of the top of the Democratic ticket in Ohio; where Vice President Kamala Harris lost the state’s union households by nine points, the senator carried them by 13.

 

On Tuesday, he gave his final speech on the Senate floor. Occasionally choking up, Brown had stood at a desk that had once belonged to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York — something he discovered on his first day in the chamber, when he saw Kennedy’s signature in a drawer.

 

As Brown invariably does, he wore a bright white lapel pin given to him decades ago by a steelworker in Lorain. It depicts a caged canary. “At the turn of the last century, coal miners took the canary down into the mines with them to warn them of poisonous gasses,” he said. “The mine worker in those days knew he didn’t have a union strong enough or a government that cared enough to look out for him. He was on his own. Over the last century and a half, we have done so much to change that. And all of those fights required going up against powerful special interests.”

 

That day, 40 or so of his Senate colleagues who had gathered to hear Brown’s remarks wore identical pins in his honor.

 

I caught up with Brown the morning after that Senate speech. His suite on the fifth floor of the Hart Office Building, where we spoke, was all but empty, the walls and desks already bare.

 

But although he himself will no longer be there come January, Brown insists that Democrats can — and must — win back the votes of working-class Americans. Those voters may disagree with some of the party’s stances on social issues, such as guns, abortion, crime and immigration, but will return to the fold “if we stay on economic issues and do it right.”

 

“We have to sharpen our message. I don’t look at politics left and right. It’s who’s on your side,” he said. “Work really binds. I mean, what do we have in common? The term ‘dignity of work’ really cuts across all lines.”

 

Brown, 72, refused to call that speech a farewell. “It is not — I promise you — the last time you will hear from me,” he said. Indeed, in the waning hours of the congressional session, Brown notched one last major achievement: passage of a bill that will give millions of public sector retirees full Social Security benefits, instead of the reduced payments they currently receive.

 

His future options include running again for the Senate in 2026, when there will be a special election to fill the unexpired term of the seat now held by Vice President-elect JD Vance (R).

 

I hope he does, because few have so ardently championed the value of work. And his, it is clear, is not finished.

 

Mona Charen - The Journal is a Joke

 

The Wall Street Journal has become a parody of itself

In the Trump era, there is simply no Republican, no matter how deranged or unfit, whom the Journal will not prefer to a Democratic opponent. The spectacle of the Journal chastising the Biden administration without a solitary word about Trump and his enablers is breathtaking.

By  Mona Charen

 

  Dec 20, 2024, 6:00am CST

 

Many American institutions have beclowned themselves in the last 10 years — too many to list. To count the right-leaning institutions that have not succumbed to Trumpian populism takes only one hand.

But the decline of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has been particularly galling because, compared to the Heritage Foundation, Hillsdale College or the Claremont Institute, it had farther to fall.

In the pre-Trump era, the paper had some integrity. While the board was broadly aligned with the Republican Party, its editorials didn’t hesitate to differ with Republicans on major questions.

In the Trump era, the Journal has become, if not Pravda, then something like the Nation. The Nation reliably whitewashed the sins of the Soviet Union and other communist regimes because it regarded anti-communism as a greater threat to the world than communism itself.

Similarly, The Wall Street Journal has gradually become a parody of itself on the grounds that Democrats are always and forever the greatest threat to the country.

With that guiding principle, there is simply no Republican, no matter how deranged or unfit, whom the Journal will not prefer to a Democratic opponent.

In 2022, the Journal advised its Arizona readers to choose Kari Lake for governor despite the fact Lake had called for the 2020 election to be decertified, denounced mask-wearing and encouraged the use of hydroxychloroquine during the pandemic, promised to criminally pursue journalists who “dupe the public” and pronounced the nation “rotten to the core” when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago.

The Journal didn’t mention most of that in its endorsement, claiming, hilariously, that Arizona’s election was primarily about school choice.

This week, commenting on the drone kerfuffle, the Journal intoned it couldn’t be sure what people were seeing — but it was certain the whole thing could be attributed to the erosion of trust in government.

Noting that “non-cranks” have reported seeing things that move strangely in the dark, the Journal quoted Jon Bramnick, a GOP state senator from New Jersey, who said, “It must be something going on that they can’t tell us because they are so fearful of what the public’s gonna do when they hear what the drones are doing.”

You might think the paper would rebuke this state senator for getting out over his skis and encouraging conspiratorial thinking, but no, the editorial notes: “This is how deep the suspicion runs. And when that happens, conspiracy theories fill the air as much as drones do.”

And guess who’s responsible for this erosion of trust?

Spy balloons, drones, FEMA and more

The Biden administration has squandered its credibility to the point that it’s rational not to believe what it says. Remember the Chinese spy balloon that traveled across the continental U.S.? The administration downplayed its importance while it was courting better relations with Beijing, only to shoot it down over the Atlantic Ocean.

Whoa. If you want to cite relations with Beijing as a source of mistrust, the Trump administration offers far more dire examples. While he was chasing a “great trade agreement” with Xi Jinping (the terms of which were never honored, by the way), Donald Trump repeatedly lied about and minimized the risk of COVID-19, which had far more serious consequences for Americans’ lives than waiting until the big spy balloon was over the ocean before shooting it down.

Nor did the Journal see fit to mention that Trump is, right on schedule and very on-brand, stoking conspiracies of government malfeasance about the drones. He popped off: “Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge. I don’t think so! Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!!”

This is not to excuse President Joe Biden’s betrayal of trust in repeatedly promising that he would not pardon his son and then doing so, or misleading the public about the degree of his physical and mental decline.

But for the Journal to look at the world of 2024 and conclude the erosion of trust in government is due to Biden without ever once mentioning Trump and his minions are the most prolific bilge-spillers imaginable, is to be completely without scruple.

Just in the last few weeks of the campaign, Trump falsely alleged the Federal Emergency Management Agency was purposely withholding hurricane assistance in order to funnel funds to illegal immigrants, the Congo was emptying its prisons to send convicts to the United States and the 2020 election was stolen.

Trust is crucial to the successful functioning of society. Many social science studies have found that nations with high trust have less corruption and greater prosperity than those with low trust. It makes sense. If you believe that most people are untrustworthy, you will rely only on those within your own family or tribe and be less likely to engage with outsiders.

The drone affair is fluff and will doubtless be forgotten in a month if not sooner. But the spectacle of the Journal chastising the Biden administration without a solitary word about Trump and his enablers (in whose ranks they stand) is breath-taking.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the “Beg to Differ” podcast.

How Colleges Really Talk About Rich Applicants

 How Colleges Really Talk About Rich Applicants

‘Sure hope the wealthy raise a few more smart kids!’ wrote one college enrollment officer, according to the suit

By 

Douglas Belkin

Dec. 17, 2024 4:18 pm

 

A lawsuit alleging universities colluded to determine students’ financial-aid packages provides a glimpse into the ways top schools assess children of privilege differently from the rest of the applicant pool.

At Georgetown University, a former president selected students for a special admission list by consulting their parents’ donation history, not their transcript, according to the suit. At Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a board member got the school to admit two applicants who were children of a wealthy former business colleague. And at Notre Dame, an enrollment official in charge of a special applicant list wrote to others, “Sure hope the wealthy next year raise a few more smart kids!”, according to the suit. 

The motion, filed Tuesday in Illinois federal court, is the latest salvo in a lawsuit that began in January 2022. The plaintiffs, former students, initially charged more than a dozen elite universities with price fixing. Twelve schools have since settled. The motion on Tuesday seeks class-action status for the case against the remaining five schools: MIT, Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown and Cornell University.

For families embroiled in the college-application process and facing ever steeper odds to win entry to elite schools, the records feed suspicions that colleges have different standards for children of means.

At Notre Dame, the university’s Institutional Risk and Compliance Committee said the admission of so many children of major donors represented a major risk to the institution’s brand should it become public, according to the motion. In 2020, the school admitted 86 applicants who were connected to large donors, or about 4% of the incoming class. Within that group, 76% of those donor admits needed special consideration to be admitted, the motion said.

Speaking about the class of 2016, Donald Bishop, then the associate vice president for undergraduate enrollment, noted a decline of 30 top academic students at the same time the donor list was used. 

“We allowed their high gifting or potential gifting to influence our choices more this year than last year,” Bishop said in a 2012 email provided in the lawsuit. 

Spokespeople for Georgetown, Notre Dame and MIT said that the schools plan to fight the suit in court and that their students all earned their places. A Notre Dame spokesman said the school is confident “every student admitted to Notre Dame is fully qualified and ready to succeed.”

It is a precarious time for elite universities, which have become the targets of growing public frustration. President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to investigate internal university operations and tax the endowments of elite schools.

Some of the anger directed at the nation’s most prestigious schools comes from perceived hypocrisy. 

Elite universities often present themselves as meritocracies that admit the best and brightest. The motion filed Tuesday, which draws from years of speeches at exclusive gatherings, depositions and internal university reports, shows officials bowing to financial pressures to admit wealthy students over potentially more qualified candidates. 

Discovery in a separate court case about race-based preferences in college admissions revealed Harvard University had a “Z list,” a route through which weaker, but wealthy or connected, applicants could gain admission.

In the past few years several schools, including Amherst College, have gotten rid of legacy admission. Additionally several states, including California, have banned the practice.

Inside the suit

Tuesday’s filing seeks class certification and asks for $685 million in damages. If awarded, that figure would triple to more than $2 billion under U.S. antitrust laws. Ten schools including Dartmouth College, Northwestern University and Rice University have settled for a total of $284 million, and two more have settled for amounts that haven’t been disclosed. 

The lawsuit also includes testimony from Sara Harberson, Penn’s associate dean of admission from 1999 to 2008, who was deposed for the case in October 2023. She said that the school had a “bona fide special interest” tag for students from families who were big donors or knew someone on the board of trustees.

Those students were assured of admission. 

If the school was over-enrolled, they were protected, regardless of their academic record. “You had absolutely no power as an admissions officer,” Harberson said in her deposition.

A spokesman for Penn said it sees no merit in the lawsuit.  

“The actual evidence in the case makes clear that Penn does not favor in admissions students whose families have made or pledged donations to Penn, whatever the amount,” said the spokesman.

At Georgetown, a former president selected students for an annual president’s list after reviewing information about the parents’ donation history and capacity, but without reviewing the applicant’s transcript, teacher recommendations or personal essays. Atop the list he often wrote “Please Admit,” according to the motion.

HARRY LITMAN

  

Cheney Reaction

Trump and House Republicans’ coordinated hit job

Harry Litman Dec 20

 

I think Liz Cheney will probably emerge just fine from the ordeal that the Republicans in the House Oversight Subcommittee have prepared for her. But the scheme to make her suffer for the sin of having served responsibly on the January 6 Committee tells us a lot about the contours of the coming Trump 2.0 wave of reprisals.

In a report released on Tuesday, the House Oversight Subcommittee, chaired by Trump loyalist Barry Loudermilk, wrote that Cheney should be investigated by the FBI for crimes growing out of the work she did as Vice Chair of the Committee. Trump was quick to second the proposal, with a feigned stance as a mere observer:
"Liz Cheney could be in a lot of trouble based on the evidence obtained by the subcommittee, which states that 'numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, and these violations should be investigated by the FBI.'"

The report alleges, outrageously, that Cheney committed crimes in her communications with critical January 6 witness Cassidy Hutchinson. Hutchinson was initially represented by an attorney supplied and compensated by Team Trump. According to Hutchinson’s account in her 2023 book, “Enough,” that attorney coached her not to be forthcoming and to refrain from saying bad things about “the boss.”

Hutchinson reports that she initially played ball but then had a crisis of conscience. She grew particularly concerned when her attorney made noises about no longer cooperating with the Committee, exposing her to the possibility of contempt. At that point, she reached out to Cheney through an intermediary and had a series of indirect and a few direct communications with the Wyoming congresswoman.

Then, on June 28, 2022, as a riveted audience watched on TV, Hutchinson, with new counsel, provided perhaps the most dramatic testimony of the January 6 hearings. She detailed Trump’s indifference, and even enthusiasm, about the melee that he had set in motion and the knowledge and culpability of her boss, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Her manner was direct, forthright, and, I thought, slightly pained. Nobody I know didn’t believe her every word.

In a previous interim report, Loudermilk and company had tried to tag Cheney with unethical behavior for communicating with Hutchinson in the absence of her Trump-supplied lawyer. That accusation doesn’t cut it for what they’re looking to do now, namely having her investigated for multiple felonies.

And what justification does the report supply to justify its stunning suggestion that Cheney violated multiple federal criminal laws in her committee work? The report says next to nothing. It asserts in colorful and vaguely sinister-sounding language that Cheney “colluded” with Hutchinson. And it supplies citations of a few federal statutes but doesn’t attempt to match them up directly with Cheney’s conduct.

The necessary insinuation, however, is that Cheney pushed Hutchinson to provide a false account. Each of the three crimes that Loudermilk calls out requires that Hutchinson testified falsely in her return to the Committee (and, to go after Cheney, additional requirements that Cheney somehow shaped the false testimony). So, in Loudermilk’s account, Hutchinson’s first mealy and hedged testimony that she gave while being advised by the Trump-supplied lawyer was true, while the dramatic and detailed account we all saw on television was a bunch of lies.

And how do we know that the later testimony was perjurious? Here’s where the Loudermilk report comes up empty. The report jumps to that conclusion based on the mere fact that Hutchinson’s later testimony changed. Of course, the more likely conclusion is that the later testimony was truthful and Hutchinson didn’t hoodwink the entire country with an account that played as totally honest.

Notice, by the way, the attack on Cheney implies that the Trump reprisal operation will also extend to Cassidy Hutchinson. The overreach, raw politics, and sheer injustice of that move should inspire revulsion on the part of anyone who saw her brave testimony.

Cheney, for her part, was quick to strike back at Loudermilk’s threadbare report, calling the report’s accusations “lies and defamatory allegations.” She vigorously defended the work of the committee. And then she went to the heart of what the Loudermilk report is really about: an effort to whitewash Trump’s role in the attack on the Capitol.

Cheney wrote, “January 6 showed Donald Trump for who he really is—a cruel and vindictive man who allowed violent attacks to continue against our Capitol and law enforcement officers while he watched television and refused for hours to instruct the supporters to stand down and leave.”

Cheney’s forceful response may be a preview of coming attractions. I think Cheney will have the better of the battle. Her independent dignity will contrast favorably with the imperious Inquisition-style attacks of the vengeance squad.

That’s particularly true because she has the truth on her side. We needn’t dig deep to determine if Loudermilk’s report provides any credible basis for investigation into Cheney for federal crimes. The report does not even begin to state a case for criminal conduct. Communications between witnesses and committee staff—or even the committee Chair—are routine features of partisan hearings. The fact that Hutchinson had a lawyer (Trump-supplied, and possibly himself improperly serving two masters), whatever ethical problems it may present, is in no way a crime.

Despite failing to make a case for any criminal activity, Loudermilk goes to the trouble of stating that Cheney would not have the protection of the speech and debate clause on the grounds that talking with a committee witness does not fall under the legislative sphere. That’s dubious. Participation in committee hearings or investigations is down-the-middle legislative activity and subject to the clause’s protections.

The bigger point is Cheney doesn’t need those protections, not having done anything wrong other than serve on a committee investigating Trump. Absent proof of something that almost certainly isn’t the case—that Hutchinson’s testimony that kept the country rapt was all just a bunch of lies crafted with the help of Cheney—any referral to the DOJ would today be a non-starter. With no real evidence supporting the basic charge that Cheney manipulated Hutchinson to lie, no self-respecting prosecutor would give it a second look.

But that’s not where the story ends in our post-November 5 world, where Kash Patel (whose GOP support seems to be consolidating) is all-in on Trump’s lies and payback plans.

Loudermilk’s referral is only the potential first step in a full-feature Orwellian nightmare that Trump and company likely have in store for those they consider disloyal. Under normal circumstances, referrals from Congress to DOJ go through professional nonpartisan review by career staff. That’s, of course, what happened for the various January 6-related contempt motions when the department wound up green-lighting Bannon but declining to charge Meadows.

But Loudermilk’s unsupported suggestion figures to arrive at a Patel-led FBI and a Department of Justice overseen by Trump partisans, beginning with Pam Bondi and including many of his personal lawyers from the last few years of legal proceedings. Plus, the Supreme Court, in its immunity opinion, specified that a president’s ability to discuss or demand investigations from the FBI is a core executive power beyond the reach of criminal law. This means Trump will be able to insert himself into the process with impunity.

At this point, we can connect the dots of an ugly authoritarian picture. Loudermilk and the House send over a baseless recommendation, and Bondi, Patel, and the FBI go corruptly running with it. Cheney would be without legal recourse to challenge any of it; she would have to take her lumps and pay her lawyers while the investigative process plays out.

The point is that even if they are peddling fabricated charges, a Trump-controlled FBI and DOJ can still make life miserable for a subject of an investigation that they eventually decide not to charge. The stress, reputational harm, and, not least, the expense of a detailed investigation is a form of potent damage, even ruin, for which there is almost never any subsequent redress. This is a particular danger for Cassidy Hutchinson if the new gang decides to go after her.

Now, the Trump government can only take this scheme so far. Any actual federal charge of Cheney would be DOA, and likely invite a stern reprimand from a federal judge. (This is a general risk for DOJ lawyers in the coming regime, where Trump may try to order up all manner of legal nonsense.) A baseless charge could even subject DOJ lawyers and FBI investigators to discipline.

There are a few larger lessons to be gleaned from this episode. The first is that we can expect the Trump 2.0 authoritarian agenda to be legalistic; that is, it will provide a veneer of legitimacy by exploiting and corrupting the existing legal mechanisms of democracy. Authoritarian reversions needn’t depend on brownshirts or boots on the ground. A notable example of this is the way Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (whom Trump has often extolled for his policies and leadership style) has co-opted the country’s legal mechanisms for his personal interest. (Oh and by the way, Orbán has visited Trump on at least two occasions this year, including one earlier this month where the two men were joined by—you guessed it—Elon Musk.)

Second, Trump’s wide-ranging control of different government actors gives him the option of relying on others to do the dirty work. He has a large crew of loyal servants whose job it is to take the political heat. That permits him, as we saw him do often in the first term, to hedge or even feign neutrality towards actions that may backfire with the American people. So here, for example, he certainly knew what the Loudermilk committee was planning for Cheney, but he adopted the stance of an outsider who was just taking note of the trouble Cheney might be in, even though there’s little doubt that he is the architect of that trouble. But when it blows up, he can claim he never was vehement about investigating the congresswoman. Likewise for the referral when it happens. He can adopt a public stance that he is leaving it in Patel’s hands but still control (and with Supreme Court-conferred immunity) the decisions of his DOJ and FBI.

Finally, at the bottom of a Trump scheme to draw blood against someone disloyal, there will always be a lie. Trump wants to avenge his enemies, but he wants to distort the truth even more. His ultimate aim is to erase his criminal conduct from the pages of history and emerge as the man he’s claimed to be from the start: a victim of the deep state whose conduct has always been “perfect.”

Talk to you later.

Joyce Vance

 SecDef

Joyce Vance

In early 2021, just days ahead of January 6, every living Secretary of Defense signed onto a letter that ran in the Washington Post. The message: the military doesn't determine the outcome of elections.

“Each of us swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We did not swear it to an individual or a party,” the wrote. “American elections and the peaceful transfers of power that result are hallmarks of our democracy.”

They wrote, before the events on January 6 took place, that “this year should be no exception.” Of course, tragically, it was. At the time the Post published their letter, all sorts of alarm bells were already going off for anyone who was paying attention (unlike in FBI headquarters). The former civilian leaders of our military were deeply concerned, so much so that they went to press with it.

They referred to senior defense leaders who they quoted as weighing in to say, “‘there’s no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election.’ Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory.” They admonished Chris Miller, the acting secretary who had assumed his post most unusually after Trump lost the election in 2020, with his chief of staff, Kash Patel, at his side that “They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.” Just days later, the two were in place as rioters overran the Capitol.

Our country has a proud tradition of a civilian-led military, designed by the Founding Fathers to avoid the risk of a coup by the military. The Secretary of Defense doesn’t come to the job from active duty, and waivers have to be obtained from Congress for those out of uniform for less than seven years, as President Biden did for Lloyd Austin and Donald Trump did for James Mattis. The irony, then, was that in 2020 it was that same civilian leadership of the military that in no small part was responsible for preventing a president from being the one to insinuate the takeover.

Donald Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth to be the Secretary of Defense. It's a nomination that should have been ended by allegations of financial mismanagement—Hegseth denies them—of an organization whose budget ran into tens of millions, not the $783 billion dollar budget he would oversee at the Pentagon. And, of course, there are the other criticisms that have been leveled at Hegseth, of misogyny and sexual assault, which he also denies, and of excess drinking, of which he says he won’t drink if he’s confirmed.

Politico reported on Thursday that a dozen senators, both Democrats and Republicans, have taken the unusual step of asking for his FBI background investigation. The report relates this interesting detail, “Some Republicans, such as [Maine Republican Sen. Susan] Collins and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, say the claims are serious enough to warrant greater access to the findings. While it’s unlikely the FBI findings would be made public, they could still give Republican senators political cover to vote against Hegseth or support his defense.” Hegseth has said he has nothing to hide and welcomes the FBI background process, so if everyone’s in agreement, let’s get that report into the senators’ hands!

You may recall from the whole affair with Justice Kavanaugh that the FBI does background investigations aren’t always as fulsome as the seriousness of confirmation proceedings suggest they should be. As in that case, there’s also the possibility that a report could whitewash serious issues by, for instance, failing to speak with all of the witnesses who have information to offer or neglecting leads so that the process can be completed quickly. But the fact that even Republican senators are asking for the report shows that this is a nomination that deserves far greater scrutiny than Donald Trump and his followers want it to get.

As we saw in January of 2021, it’s one of the most important jobs in government. It’s about leading the military, but it is also, in times of great stress, about upholding the Constitution and the rule of law. The secretary of defense is supposed to lead the military and serve the people, not the president. Right now, it’s only the Senate, and let’s be blunt, Republican senators, who can ensure that this next pick is up to the job.

Can you imagine Pete Hegseth signing on to a letter like the one that was written by Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry, and Donald Rumsfeld? Can you imagine him heeding the kind of advice his predecessors, if he’s confirmed, are likely to offer him? It’s not often that you see a group that consists largely of former politicians from both parties, including a Vice President (Cheney), coming forward to make a definitive statement like the one in the Post that January morning. It’s not that it was controversial; perhaps it’s that it wasn’t, but that it desperately needed to be said, nonetheless, in that moment.

At his confirmation hearing, Pete Hegseth needs to be asked, among many other things, if he agrees with the sentiment expressed by the men who held the job he aspires to. If the answer isn’t an unequivocal yes (and it’s unlikely it will be given the context), it’s just another reason he’s not fit to serve.

We’re in this together,

Joyce