You’re reading The Weekly, a Saturday morning recap of the best Dispatch content of the week, with some additional commentary from Managing Editor Rachael Larimore.
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You → read → Larimore
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll stepped down this week, days after meeting with President Donald Trump to discuss his concerns about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s management of the Pentagon.
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Driscoll → step → Pentagon
Driscoll’s resignation had been expected for some time, given his frequent clashes with Hegseth.
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resignation → expect → Hegseth
And in the wake of his departure, reports revealed a precarious state of affairs at the Department of Defense.
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reports → reveal → Defense
Hegseth has fired or blocked the promotions of more than 80 generals and admirals, and, as we noted in Thursday’s Morning Dispatch, “roughly 60 percent of the two dozen senior officers he had fired for reasons unrelated to performance were black or female.”
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he → fire → performance
But Hegseth’s interventions have not just been about purging the military of what he views as “DEI”:
On April 2, Hegseth fired Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, and Gen. David Hodne, the head of the service’s Transformation and Training Command (T2COM)—the command responsible for “force design, force development and force generation.”
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Hegseth → purge → design
In late June, Hegseth ousted Gen. Chris Donahue, the commander of all U.S. Army troops in Europe and Africa who was regarded as a superb special operations commander.
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who → oust → commander
George, Hodne, and Donahue, alongside Driscoll, had led the Army’s push to incorporate more drones into its operations.
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George → lead → operations
Concerns about Hegseth’s stewardship of the Department of Defense—the largest agency in the federal government and the largest employer in the United States—go well beyond firing generals.
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Concerns → go → generals
In late August, ProPublica revealed that early in his tenure, Hegseth moved to cut staffing for the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response program, developed after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—over the objections of his combatant commanders.
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Hegseth → reveal → commanders
Contributing writer Mike Nelson recalled that after a U.S. strike accidentally killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children, during the chaotic days after the fall of Kabul in 2021, Hegseth leaped to condemn the Biden administration for withdrawing intelligence assets and hindering counterterror operations.
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Hegseth → contribute → operations
But that’s when Hegseth was a talking head on Fox News.
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Hegseth → ’ → News
Now that Hegseth is running the Pentagon, he’s done “a 180-degree turn on the topic of civilian harm mitigation.”
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he → run → mitigation
And on the first day of the Iran war in February, U.S. forces accidentally struck a girl’s school in Minab, Iran, killing more than 150 people, mostly children.
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forces → strike → people
Mike writes:
We are marking the five-year anniversary of a tragic strike that killed innocent civilians, which had been loudly condemned by Hegseth, and which led to the DoD-wide program to prevent such incidents in the future, as we also mark the six-month anniversary of an even greater tragedy, most likely enabled by the dismantling of that program by the same person who had criticized the original incident.
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who → write → incident
It appears Hegseth probably never saw virtue in protecting civilians and only saw utility in the incident as a cudgel against Biden, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley.
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Hegseth → appear → Biden
Nor does it seem that Hegseth has any interest in the transparency and accountability he claimed to seek, as he is unwilling to tell the simple truth about the strike in Minab.
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he → seem → Minab
Speaking of transparency, the Washington Post reported this week that the Pentagon has put several conservative influencers on the payroll.
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Pentagon → speak → payroll
Among them, retired Air Force Col. Rob Maness has published columns at The Daily Caller and Campus Reform defending Hegseth, and retired Army Col. Kurt Schlichter has called President Donald Trump a “hero for finally fighting back against Iran” in his regular Townhall column.
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Schlichter → publish → column
Neither disclosed that they were working for the Pentagon.
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they → disclose → Pentagon
This is not the first time Hegseth has attempted to control the national conversation about his department.
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Hegseth → attempt → department
For a more thorough history, we turn again to Mike Nelson.
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we → turn → Nelson
He catalogs how Hegseth has fired advisers on suspicion that they were sources for unflattering media reports about him, placed restrictions on the Pentagon press corps, welcomed MAGA-friendly new-media outlets, and—days before the story about the influencers broke—fired three senior leaders from Stars and Stripes for its coverage of challenges facing service members and their families as a result of the Iran war.
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story → catalog → war
Mike argues:
There are obvious examples of bad behavior, spin, and a lack of forthrightness from previous administrations’ defense officials.
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Mike → argue → officials
Lloyd Austin famously concealed his health issues, both from the American people and his higher political leadership, and simply went incommunicado for days. …
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Austin → conceal → days
But the Hegseth DOD takes prevarication and pressure to a new level.
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DOD → take → level
It’s not enough to merely offer the administration’s narrative of events, but officials try to dictate who is even allowed to report the news, to control those who do, to punish those who divert from its preferred characterization, and blatantly lie to the American public.
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who → ’ → public
Nick Catoggio also tackled Hegseth’s propaganda ploy in Boiling Frogs.
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Catoggio → tackle → Frogs
While he shares Mike Nelson’s disdain, he also thinks it’s a little silly in at least one way, noting that the influencers “are located deep inside the MAGA swamp politically, far away from where they might put a meaningful dent in mainstream opinion.”
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they → share → opinion
Silly, perhaps, but also dangerous:
Meritocracy, military restraint, institutional neutrality: Is it any surprise that a guy who regards liberal ideals like those as sissy stuff might also reflexively disdain norms against the government using furtive means to try to influence public opinion in its favor?
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who → regard → favor
And is it further any surprise that that guy would be enough of a lunkhead to recruit a coterie of chuds as “feds” who are only capable of influencing people whose opinions are already in his favor?
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opinions → recruit → favor
The truth is that Hegseth doesn’t really “do” strategy.
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Hegseth → do → strategy
As the sort of postliberal who believes there’s nothing wrong with the U.S. military that can’t be fixed by making it more like the Russian military, he simply defaults to “more ruthlessness” when attempting to solve a problem.
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he → believe → problem
On that cheery note, I should probably let you get to your holiday weekend.
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you → let → weekend
If you need me, I’ll be on the couch watching ESPN’s GameDay before turning my attention to my beloved Buckeyes.
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I → need → Buckeyes
The Constitution established a representative regime among coequal citizens in which the people elected delegates who formed only one part of an elaborate architecture of offices designed to operate under the rule of law and protect their natural rights.
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who → establish → rights
It was this combination—popular sovereignty and coequal citizenship exercised through representation; the division of government into distinct branches, each with checks and balances on the others; all governed and limited by a constitution, the rule of law, and natural rights—that made the new government a republic, not a pure democracy.
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government → exercise → law
Alexander Hamilton argued that these modern institutions would guard the American republic against the tumult and upheaval of the ancient experiments in liberty.
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institutions → argue → liberty
He wrote in Federalist 9 that they are “powerful means, by which the excellencies of republican government may be retained.”
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excellencies → write → government
We do not live in that republic anymore.
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We → live → republic
…and 10 more, not listed.
