No doubt the Beltway press would love to knock Pete Hegseth out as Defense secretary, but that doesn’t come close to explaining the mess at the Pentagon. The staff infighting, dismissals, and leaks over Signal app chats look to be the self-inflicted mistakes of a management neophyte.
Three advisers were dismissed last week and hit social media to claim ill-treatment. Another departed adviser published an account of what he called “a month of total chaos at the Pentagon” in Politico. According to multiple media accounts, Mr. Hegseth ran a chat on the Signal messaging app that discussed a military strike and included his wife and other associates.
Sen. Tom Cotton quipped on social media that President Trump won’t be taking staffing advice from Politico, and that is for sure. Mr. Hegseth was typically dismissive. “A few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out, from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax,” Mr. Hegseth said Monday.
But the media didn’t make up the staff turmoil, or the embarrassing Signal chat that Mr. Hegseth didn’t deny. Can you imagine Bob Gates talking about a military strike on an app with friends and family?
All of this is news because it relates to whether Mr. Hegseth can handle the job. As GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell warned in voting against Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation, the desire to be a change agent isn’t a sufficient credential to run the giant Pentagon bureaucracy.
If Mr. Hegseth is wise, he’ll use the staff shakeup to hire some loyal grownups who know the building, instead of the self-promoting isolationists he first brought in.
What is harder to know is how much these first two months on the job have hurt Mr. Hegseth’s credibility inside the military. His calling card is enforcing high standards and accountability at every military level. He’s relieved several general officers to make his point, sometimes firing indiscriminately without checking his scope.
Is the secretary accountable himself?
President Trump gave Mr. Hegseth a vote of public confidence Monday. But it’s no credit to either man that the Defense chief has spent his first weeks in office validating the confirmation concerns of his critics.
— The Wall Street Journal
