ArcaMax

It’s a ritual as old as America. A new president is elected. He then selects the leaders of his team, who are subject to confirmation by the Senate based on their experience and qualifications for the office to which they were nominated.

There’s only one thing lacking today: a laugh-out loud test, whereby some nominees would never be seriously considered because they’re so manifestly unfit for office. Instead, they’d be immediately dismissed by leaders of both parties as some kind of sick joke.

Too bad it doesn’t exist today, because there are several of Donald Trump’s nominees who wouldn’t pass the laugh test. Like Tulsi Gabbard, who couldn’t even qualify for a national security clearance, as director of National Intelligence. Like Kash Patel, who vows to shut down FBI Headquarters, as the agency’s new director. Like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who vows to wipe all protection against measles, polio, Covid and other infectious diseases, as secretary of Health and Human Services.

But nobody embodies the laugh test more than Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to be the next secretary of Defense, whose only real job was as a second-rate, weekend Fox News host. It’s hard to imagine a less qualified candidate.

The Department of Defense is America’s largest government agency, with almost 3 million employees, including 1.4 million active-duty personnel. Hegseth has no executive or senior command experience, and has no background in the defense industry, Congress or federal government – traditional training grounds for defense secretary. Not only that, he’s called for firing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for being too “woke,” has insisted “we should not have women in combat zones,” vocally supported soldiers accused of war crimes and said that having gay people serve in the military is part of a “Marxist” agenda.

Hegseth also has a history of serious behavioral problems with alcohol and sexual abuse. As reported by the New Yorker and CBS News, he was “pushed out” as head of Concerned Veterans of America because of “being “repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity — to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events.” NBC News aired reports by 10 Fox News staffers about Hegseth’s alcohol abuse, including smelling alcohol on his breath before his going on the air, being called on the carpet by Fox management for alcohol-induced misbehavior at a Fox Christmas party and getting so drunk at a producer’s wedding he had trouble standing in the men’s bathroom and friends arranged a ride home so he could make it to the studio the next morning. As Atlantic columnist David Frum joked on “Morning Joe,” “If you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed.”

And, of course, Hegseth also faces multiple accusations of serial extramarital affairs and sexual abuse: at Concerned Veterans of America, at Fox News, and, most notably, in a 2017 Monterey, California, incident where he was accused of raping a local Republican political leader. No charges were filed, and Hegseth denies doing anything wrong. Rapists always do. Just ask DJT.

But Hegseth’s serial sexual abuse was bad enough for his mother to tell him via email: "You are an abuser of women – that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego.”

OK, you can understand why Donald Trump would appoint someone like Hegseth. Birds of a feather! But how can Republican s enators even consider taking him seriously? It doesn’t pass the laugh test!

Our men and women in the military are required to adhere to a high standard of moral behavior. It’s drilled into every recruit. The Pentagon has very severe penalties for anyone caught intoxicated while on duty – and very strong rules, although not always strictly enforced, against sexual misconduct. Because of his history of alcohol and sexual abuse, Pete Hegseth would never be considered for a senior military command, or would be stripped of his rank, if already an officer. Yet spineless Senate Republicans, who used to brag about supporting the military, now appear willing to ignore Hegseth’s alarming personal behavior and force him on the Pentagon – because that’s what their “dear leader” wants.

Hegseth’s nomination is an insult to anyone who’s ever worn the uniform and to every brave man and woman wearing it today. They are patriots. They are heroes. They deserve better: a leader who sets an example, not one they’ll be embarrassed by.

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(Bill Press is host of The BillPressPod, and author of 10 books, including: “From the Left: My Life in the Crossfire.” His email address is: bill@billpress.com. Readers may also follow him on Twitter @billpresspod.)

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