{"id":12850793,"date":"2025-12-03T01:09:37","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T06:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/?p=12850793"},"modified":"2025-12-03T17:34:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T22:34:01","slug":"pete-hegseth-needs-to-go-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/2025\/12\/03\/pete-hegseth-needs-to-go-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Hegseth Needs to Go\u2014Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 data-flatplan-title=\"true\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/2025\/12\/pete-hegseth-pentagon-department-defense\/685098\/?gift=rzDUIolzVNfKfBNSyuQYsV-0wZJU4uczlPTbeNNutaQ&amp;utm_source=copy-link&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pete Hegseth Needs to Go\u2014Now<\/a><\/h2>\n<p><em>A man with such contempt for the military should not run the Pentagon.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>By\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/author\/tom-nichols\/\" data-event-element=\"author\" data-flatplan-author-link=\"true\">Tom Nichols, The Atlantic\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">Presidents have always sent people to lead the Pentagon who respect the institutions and personnel of the armed forces, not least because Americans tend to bristle at any sign that an administration does not unreservedly support the men and women of the U.S. military. (Just ask\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/archives\/la-xpm-1995-09-04-mn-42134-story.html\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"6690\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">Bill Clinton<\/a>\u00a0and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/outrage-ensues-after-obamas-coffee-cup-salute\/\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"6706\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">\u00a0Barack Obama<\/a>, both of whom were castigated for such supposed disrespect.) In his first term, Donald Trump sent General James Mattis, a veteran of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then, when Mattis quit, he appointed a long-serving defense professional, Mark Esper.<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">But this time, the president found a perfect instrument of destruction to send across the Potomac: Pete Hegseth, a Trump sycophant who served in the military, topped out at the mid-level rank of major, and left full of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/11\/21\/us\/politics\/pete-hegseth-defense-department.html\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"6805\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">bitterness and resentment<\/a>\u00a0toward a military establishment that clearly didn\u2019t value his brilliance and fortitude.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/2025\/12\/pete-hegseth-pentagon-department-defense\/685098\/?gift=rzDUIolzVNfKfBNSyuQYsV-0wZJU4uczlPTbeNNutaQ&amp;utm_source=copy-link&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">More here &gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pete Hegseth Needs to Go\u2014Now A man with such contempt for the military should not run the Pentagon. By\u00a0Tom Nichols, The Atlantic\u00a0 Presidents have always sent people to lead the Pentagon who respect the institutions and personnel of the armed forces, not least because Americans tend to bristle at any sign that an administration does [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":183,"featured_media":12850795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,1,12,25391],"tags":[371],"class_list":{"0":"post-12850793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-available","8":"category-uncategorized","9":"category-phils-favorites","10":"category-members-corner","11":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12850793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12850793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12850793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12850796,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12850793\/revisions\/12850796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12850795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12850793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12850793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12850793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}