Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Press?

Two things up front:

First, thank you for helping me reach #37 Rising in Politics on the Substack app. I did not come to this with an established media audience, and I am a one-person operation except for my trophy wife/beta reader, Kelli. Kelli also wields the cattle prod and has pointed out that the newsletter moved up in the rankings when I published at a higher pace. No more long coffee breaks for me.

Second, Kelli also pointed out that I have picked on Pete Hegseth many times, and I should move on to other, um, subjects until he does something really outrageous again. (Probably won’t be long.) So, be prepared for a lot of Kristi Noem or Russel Vought or Karoline Leavitt or . . .

Poor, performative Pete Hegseth has discovered that the Department of Defense is more complex than his populist talking points. He is out of his depth because he has none: no depth of knowledge or understanding, no depth of character, no depth of patriotism beyond his red, white, and blue pocket square and the flag pin on his lapel. In a February 23 post on X, Hegseth said, “We made a promise to the American people that they would have transparency. We will continue to honor that.” But, like his first-ever Office of the Secretary of Defense makeup studio, Hegseth is all optics, no substance. He talks transparency but hides from the press behind rhetorical and physical barriers.

Poor, unpopular Pete called his inappropriate sharing of sensitive information about imminent military operations on the Signal app “fake news,” but fake news is the new boy who cried wolf. That dog won’t hunt. Journalists will no longer roll over for it. So, since the Signalgate fiasco, they have found media briefings canceled and formerly open Pentagon doors locked. Hegseth disparaged the “liberal” and “left-wing” media in his confirmation hearing, but the loudest claims of a Department of Defense assault on transparency are coming from the Trump-friendly right-wing media.

Former OAN Pentagon correspondent Gabrielle Cuccia pounded poor, pathetic Pete in a Substack post, and for her trouble, she found herself out of a job. Cuccia, a self-described “MAGA girl,” with adorable illusions of a MAGA movement about positive change and “loving your country, not your government,” pointed out that among the newly locked doors at the Pentagon were those to the Pentagon Briefing Room, a space that had never been denied to journalists under any previous administration, just as the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House has never, to this day, locked out the press. Cuccia also stated the obvious about Defense Department leaks, saying, “Let’s be honest—since January, the real leaks at the Pentagon haven’t come from the press. They’ve come from Hegseth’s own team and other senior officials.”

Poor, paranoid Pete, who has threatened top brass with polygraphs over the leaks, knows that Cuccia is correct about their source. None of the leaks were about sensitive operations, nor were they as potentially disastrous as Hegseth’s own oversharing for attention. For instance, one news story that angered Hegseth was about the Pentagon’s plan to provide a classified briefing on China to Elon Musk. It was information the American people had a right to know. They also had a right to question whether Musk, who has business ties to China, had a legitimate need to know—a need aligned with our national security. Hegseth knew that Musk had no legitimate need to know. He knew it was a corrupt act, and he wanted to hide it. Meanwhile, according to Cuccia, even journalists’ formal requests for information go unanswered. Hegseth and his press office fear scrutiny. They fear accountability. So, they hide.

If poor, polygraph Pete needs an antidote to that fear, Steven Pressfield has it. He even wrote a book about it: The Warrior Ethos. Pressfield describes the warrior ethos as something that evolved to counter fear—the fear of death on the battlefield or the fear of failure, of embarrassment, of success, and of other demons that keep us on the sidelines of everyday life.

I know: you have already heard our Secretary of Defense talk about the warrior ethos. That brings us back to performative Pete. It’s all talk, all political performance art around a misinformed idea of the warrior ethos. Hegseth’s version is decidedly male and focused on the physical. Before he was nominated for Secretary of Defense, he said, “Women absolutely, straight up, should not be permitted to serve in combat.”¹ His is a strutting, chest-thumping, glory-seeking ethos fit for so-called rugged individualists

Early in his book, Pressfield writes, “The lioness hunts, the alpha female defends the wolf pack. The Warrior Ethos is not, at bottom, a manifestation of male aggression . . . It rests on the will and resolve of mothers and wives and daughters and—in no few instances, of female warriors as well—to defend their children, their home soil, and the values of their culture.” For Pressfield, virtues like courage, integrity, patience, and self-command matter, and his disdain for suicide bombers and YouTube beheadings is equaled by his disdain for waterboarding and extraordinary renditions.

Pressfield gives selflessness its own chapter, and that is not surprising. A look at Medal of Honor citations repeatedly reveals sacrifices made for the sake of others. Take, for instance, Sergeant First Class Alwyn C. Cashe, who pulled his men from a burning vehicle in Iraq in 2005 and then put every one of his soldiers ahead of himself for air evacuation despite 2^nd and 3^rd degree burns over 70 percent of his body. His citation ends, “Sergeant First Class Cashe’s extraordinary heroism and selflessness above and beyond the call of duty were keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.” His burns proved fatal three weeks later. Many of Hegseth’s statements since becoming Secretary of Defense would encourage soldiers to think of leaders like Cashe as undeserving, promoted ahead of better soldiers because of the color of their skin.

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A true warrior does not hide behind locked doors or scripted talking points. He faces challenges head-on, takes responsibility, and leads with integrity. The warrior ethos does not aspire to wealth, celebrity, or ease. It values honor, sacrifice, and service. It ranks character over optics. Hegseth’s version is a hollow imitation of the real thing. But he does have that wonderful bronze glow in front of the camera. Who would expect anything less from properly primped Pete?