I wonder if Pete Hegseth’s speechwriter is . . . Pete Hegseth. According to his Wikipedia page, “Hegseth studied politics at Princeton University, where he was the publisher of The Princeton Tory, a conservative student newspaper,” a sentence that screams to be followed by “where he learned to murder the English language while perfecting his brand of mind-numbing douchebaggery.”
Given how fundamentally unqualified he is to actually contribute to operational or policy planning--and how little the White House cares about the inter-agency process anyway--it wouldn't surprise me if he has plenty of spare time to write these things himself.
The biggest irony I think is he seems to present himself as a “moral warrior that is true to Christian value who also has the top credentials of Princeton” - like while Ted Cruz is also a piece of sh*t, he is not this comically idiot I feel…
At the time Hegseth was at Princeton, all the fancy universities had a real student paper that everyone gunned to get on, and then a side-piece conservative rag, handsomely funded by [insert Koch Bros-type funder here] where anyone could write provided you wrote something snarky and anti-lib. They all imagined their papers to be the Dartmouth Review but were just janky sad little broadsheets that no one read.
It has been said, take your work seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously. This is not a bad way to go about living.
Somehow, everyone in this admin seems to do the exact opposite; they take their public image and self perception as limitlessly important, and take the details of their actual work as afterthoughts to be massaged as needed.
It's as if a writer were talking about himself like he wrote Catch-22 or To Kill a Mockingbird, when he actually punched up the worst seasons of Two and a Half Men.
Jeff just reminded me twice why I’m a terrible person.
I think I want the military to exercise maximum lethality. Being timid is a good way to lose a war. We can debate whether we should have done this, but now that we’re doing this, we better blow up every missile and drone in the entire country.
The second is that I nearly gave myself a hernia laughing at the grape lady.
A delight. The metaphors for the uncertainty of combat reminds me of a favorite aphorism. "When fighting a gorilla, you don't stop when you get tired, you stop when the gorilla gets tired."
You know, if we end up with a free Iran, I sure hope all the people that spent approximately 23 hours a day writing variations of "OMG THE STRAIT IS CLOSED!!!!! THE THING EVERYONE KNEW WOULD HAPPEN HAPPENED, OMG AMERICA BTFO! IRAN WINS FOREVER! A couple of months of higher oil prices was too rich a price to pay to ensure tens of thousands of civilians didn't get massacred in the streets by a regime trying to acquire nuclear weapons with the explicit goal of destroying the west!"
Like Jesus Christ already. Trump and Hegseth are jokes but the rest of the US military are still the ones planning and carrying out operations. This isn't a game of Starcraft-meets-The-Sims where Hegseth and Trump have to furiously perform 10,000 clicks-per-minute to move every aircraft and control every individual person's actions on every aircraft carrier. I hate those two pathetic excuses for civil servants, but I hate what the IRGC has done to Iran even more, and I hate the prospect of a nuclear bomb going off in Tel Aviv or NYC even more than that.
Anyone that views this war - and other major events - exclusively through the lens of their hatred or love for Trump/Hegseth/any one person, needs to look in the mirror at the allegedly good and moral person they think they are.
If you can believe it none of this is really directed at Jeff, I've just seen some crazy takes lately on the topic.
...of course, people forget that the Spartans then got their shit packed in pretty hard by Philip's forces, meaning they couldn't back up their bravado. So who knows!
The Iraqis and Afghans never destroyed the entire US military, and if you look at the numbers, they both came out of those conflicts a lot more bruised than the US did. But I don't think anyone today looks back and celebrates those conflicts as big wins for the US because of that.
I'm a lot less confident than you in the ability of any military to overcome incompetent leadership. Trump doesn't exactly promote based on merit, unless you define merit as blind loyalty to Trump.
And for your appeal to the quality of life of Iranians, do we think Trump gives a damn about that? Wouldn't he be perfectly happy with a banana republic dictator that was equally repressive as long as they did what he wanted (and gave him the personal kickbacks he expects from all his business subordinates)?
Who gives a shit if Trump gives a damn about it? If it happens, it's a good thing. It DOESN'T MATTER if it's Trump, or Kid Rock, or a van full of Juggalos.
Are you just completely incapable of engaging with and understanding the world without passing it through your Trump filter?
Can you cite even a single credible source that would indicate that the Trump administration have ANY plan or intent to prosecute the war until regime change in Iran is done? Or is this simply wishful thinking that there’s a plan at ALL beyond trying to declare victory and convince Iran to stop hitting us back?
"If nobody is posting about it, then it doesn't exist!"
Yes, very clever rebuff. The tens of thousands of military planners and pentagon officials who have thought about this exact scenario aren't all furiously copy/pasting everything to Twitter, so it must not exist.
It's been a hair over two weeks. It's OK to just shut the fuck up about it instead of confidently declaring victory. Do YOU have a single credible source that can predict the future?
So can you point to ANYTHING AT ALL to indicate that regime change in Iran is the intent of the administration or not? Because your original comment is predicated on the idea that it is.
I would respond to the comment here directly but I can’t work out what you’re asking of me; I lack to ability to predict the future, true, but I’m also not the one who decided to start a bombing campaign with no publicly declared ideal end state.
Hegseth sounds like a reasonably competent but over-confident (Hegsethian rhyme there) high school speech competitor who thinks he's going to win Nationals but then gets wiped out in the Middle Tennessee District's qualifier. Wamp-wamp.
Hey Jeff and everyone else...my idea for all thinking liberals, like yourself, costs just $12 per year (only 3.3 cents a day) at EthicalGovtNow.org. We are, continually clustering thinking Americans in a single online home in order to aggregate a membership large enough to bend the arc of future history toward greater justice and better societal and political outcomes, pluralism and inclusivity. May I ask whether you will support positive activism and join our online "ark"?
At this point I have to wonder… what got him into Princeton…
And it seems like he symbolizes everything right wing ppl hate about Ivy League - an incompetent guy but who got into elite position with his (fake) credentials (while I’m pretty sure he believes he is the smartest one)
Your problem writing for Hegseth would be that it seems hard for you to write a muddled metaphor. "Concern about the administration’s competence is so severe that none other than John Bolton has expressed misgivings about the war, which is like Snoop Dogg saying 'No marijuana for me, thank you — it’s a school night!' " is a metaphor that should be taught at writing school. (I know its technically a simile, but if you point that out you are pedantic)
"And to America's enemies," said Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Pwning Noobs, wiping the last drops of Red Bull from his chin, "I say this: I banged your mom. It was awesome, and she said I was a total chad. I don't expect the low-T lamestream media to understand. God bless the United States and its mighty, invincible penis. Now fuck off, all of you, I want to use the Briefing Room monitor for an all-night CoD tournament."
The ground shook from the tectonic vibrations of George C. Marshall turning in his grave.
I think Lincoln and Eisenhower did not always speak as you are describing. Check out Lincoln saying he needed a General that could “Do the arithmetic.”
I think Hegseth's speech writers (and whoever told Pam Bondi to say during her Congressional hearing "Why are you homos bothering me about Epstein when the DOW IS OVER 50,000!!!??!?!") rewatch the Alec Baldwin scene from Glengarry Glenn Ross every time they need to write something for him.
I wonder if Pete Hegseth’s speechwriter is . . . Pete Hegseth. According to his Wikipedia page, “Hegseth studied politics at Princeton University, where he was the publisher of The Princeton Tory, a conservative student newspaper,” a sentence that screams to be followed by “where he learned to murder the English language while perfecting his brand of mind-numbing douchebaggery.”
I think that’s entirely likely and if true will serve as a living advertisement for hiring professional speechwriters.
I think they'd sooner outsource it to an AI trained on Hegseth's work.
Given how fundamentally unqualified he is to actually contribute to operational or policy planning--and how little the White House cares about the inter-agency process anyway--it wouldn't surprise me if he has plenty of spare time to write these things himself.
The biggest irony I think is he seems to present himself as a “moral warrior that is true to Christian value who also has the top credentials of Princeton” - like while Ted Cruz is also a piece of sh*t, he is not this comically idiot I feel…
At the time Hegseth was at Princeton, all the fancy universities had a real student paper that everyone gunned to get on, and then a side-piece conservative rag, handsomely funded by [insert Koch Bros-type funder here] where anyone could write provided you wrote something snarky and anti-lib. They all imagined their papers to be the Dartmouth Review but were just janky sad little broadsheets that no one read.
Pete Hegseth wasn’t just overpowered by this takedown, he was over-MAURERed
Thanks Matt but let’s do that drug test.
It has been said, take your work seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously. This is not a bad way to go about living.
Somehow, everyone in this admin seems to do the exact opposite; they take their public image and self perception as limitlessly important, and take the details of their actual work as afterthoughts to be massaged as needed.
It's as if a writer were talking about himself like he wrote Catch-22 or To Kill a Mockingbird, when he actually punched up the worst seasons of Two and a Half Men.
Jeff just reminded me twice why I’m a terrible person.
I think I want the military to exercise maximum lethality. Being timid is a good way to lose a war. We can debate whether we should have done this, but now that we’re doing this, we better blow up every missile and drone in the entire country.
The second is that I nearly gave myself a hernia laughing at the grape lady.
A delight. The metaphors for the uncertainty of combat reminds me of a favorite aphorism. "When fighting a gorilla, you don't stop when you get tired, you stop when the gorilla gets tired."
You know, if we end up with a free Iran, I sure hope all the people that spent approximately 23 hours a day writing variations of "OMG THE STRAIT IS CLOSED!!!!! THE THING EVERYONE KNEW WOULD HAPPEN HAPPENED, OMG AMERICA BTFO! IRAN WINS FOREVER! A couple of months of higher oil prices was too rich a price to pay to ensure tens of thousands of civilians didn't get massacred in the streets by a regime trying to acquire nuclear weapons with the explicit goal of destroying the west!"
Like Jesus Christ already. Trump and Hegseth are jokes but the rest of the US military are still the ones planning and carrying out operations. This isn't a game of Starcraft-meets-The-Sims where Hegseth and Trump have to furiously perform 10,000 clicks-per-minute to move every aircraft and control every individual person's actions on every aircraft carrier. I hate those two pathetic excuses for civil servants, but I hate what the IRGC has done to Iran even more, and I hate the prospect of a nuclear bomb going off in Tel Aviv or NYC even more than that.
Anyone that views this war - and other major events - exclusively through the lens of their hatred or love for Trump/Hegseth/any one person, needs to look in the mirror at the allegedly good and moral person they think they are.
If you can believe it none of this is really directed at Jeff, I've just seen some crazy takes lately on the topic.
> if we end up with a free Iran
As the Spartans said to Philip II: "If."
...of course, people forget that the Spartans then got their shit packed in pretty hard by Philip's forces, meaning they couldn't back up their bravado. So who knows!
Yeah wow what an apt analogy. I guess we're screwed! Iran is totally going to destroy our entire military any day now.
Let's check back on this in six months so we can marvel at what an idiot you were.
It would be a little ironic to be marveling at my supposed idiocy when you failed to understand what I even said.
"Remember, when you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It is only painful for others.
The same applies when you are stupid."
- Ricky Gervais
The Iraqis and Afghans never destroyed the entire US military, and if you look at the numbers, they both came out of those conflicts a lot more bruised than the US did. But I don't think anyone today looks back and celebrates those conflicts as big wins for the US because of that.
I'm a lot less confident than you in the ability of any military to overcome incompetent leadership. Trump doesn't exactly promote based on merit, unless you define merit as blind loyalty to Trump.
And for your appeal to the quality of life of Iranians, do we think Trump gives a damn about that? Wouldn't he be perfectly happy with a banana republic dictator that was equally repressive as long as they did what he wanted (and gave him the personal kickbacks he expects from all his business subordinates)?
Who gives a shit if Trump gives a damn about it? If it happens, it's a good thing. It DOESN'T MATTER if it's Trump, or Kid Rock, or a van full of Juggalos.
Are you just completely incapable of engaging with and understanding the world without passing it through your Trump filter?
Can you cite even a single credible source that would indicate that the Trump administration have ANY plan or intent to prosecute the war until regime change in Iran is done? Or is this simply wishful thinking that there’s a plan at ALL beyond trying to declare victory and convince Iran to stop hitting us back?
"If nobody is posting about it, then it doesn't exist!"
Yes, very clever rebuff. The tens of thousands of military planners and pentagon officials who have thought about this exact scenario aren't all furiously copy/pasting everything to Twitter, so it must not exist.
It's been a hair over two weeks. It's OK to just shut the fuck up about it instead of confidently declaring victory. Do YOU have a single credible source that can predict the future?
So can you point to ANYTHING AT ALL to indicate that regime change in Iran is the intent of the administration or not? Because your original comment is predicated on the idea that it is.
I would respond to the comment here directly but I can’t work out what you’re asking of me; I lack to ability to predict the future, true, but I’m also not the one who decided to start a bombing campaign with no publicly declared ideal end state.
And if a frog had wings...
...she'd be your uncle?
oh wait wrong metaphor. I blame the chemicals in the water.
Hegseth sounds like a reasonably competent but over-confident (Hegsethian rhyme there) high school speech competitor who thinks he's going to win Nationals but then gets wiped out in the Middle Tennessee District's qualifier. Wamp-wamp.
Liked for wamp wamp😁
Drum solos out of style? No, they are still awesome.
I liked the solo at the end of Whiplash that proved that psychological torture is good and totally works.
John Bonham’s live drum solos are epic. No need for counter-intuitive and unintended messaging
That first Hegseth clip was clearly written by ChatGPT. “Not X but Y,” ad infinitum.
Hey Jeff and everyone else...my idea for all thinking liberals, like yourself, costs just $12 per year (only 3.3 cents a day) at EthicalGovtNow.org. We are, continually clustering thinking Americans in a single online home in order to aggregate a membership large enough to bend the arc of future history toward greater justice and better societal and political outcomes, pluralism and inclusivity. May I ask whether you will support positive activism and join our online "ark"?
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Pardon me?
At this point I have to wonder… what got him into Princeton…
And it seems like he symbolizes everything right wing ppl hate about Ivy League - an incompetent guy but who got into elite position with his (fake) credentials (while I’m pretty sure he believes he is the smartest one)
Your problem writing for Hegseth would be that it seems hard for you to write a muddled metaphor. "Concern about the administration’s competence is so severe that none other than John Bolton has expressed misgivings about the war, which is like Snoop Dogg saying 'No marijuana for me, thank you — it’s a school night!' " is a metaphor that should be taught at writing school. (I know its technically a simile, but if you point that out you are pedantic)
I think Hegseth is saying “violent effect” rather than maximum effect?
"And to America's enemies," said Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Pwning Noobs, wiping the last drops of Red Bull from his chin, "I say this: I banged your mom. It was awesome, and she said I was a total chad. I don't expect the low-T lamestream media to understand. God bless the United States and its mighty, invincible penis. Now fuck off, all of you, I want to use the Briefing Room monitor for an all-night CoD tournament."
The ground shook from the tectonic vibrations of George C. Marshall turning in his grave.
I think Lincoln and Eisenhower did not always speak as you are describing. Check out Lincoln saying he needed a General that could “Do the arithmetic.”
I think Hegseth's speech writers (and whoever told Pam Bondi to say during her Congressional hearing "Why are you homos bothering me about Epstein when the DOW IS OVER 50,000!!!??!?!") rewatch the Alec Baldwin scene from Glengarry Glenn Ross every time they need to write something for him.