Hegseth and His War Department Have Lots of Explaining to Do

He “could count by twos and tie his shoes.” That’s the opening line in episodes of Franklin, a children’s TV series about an eponymous turtle that goes on to do a lot of learning. The same thing, minus the learning, could be said about Pete Hegseth, who has now adopted Franklin as an improbably martial alter ego in his evolving fantasies about “lethality” — a mental trajectory that could end his career and even culminate in accusations, against him or other top brass, of war crimes.

Here’s a partial list of Hegseth’s accomplishments since being confirmed in January as US Secretary of Defense (or, as he insists, of War) by one single vote — that of Vice President JD Vance: He has counted by twos and tied his shoes, done lots of pushups with the troops and shamed queer and “woke” folks in the military. He has purged the Pentagon press corps of established media brands in favor of activists and right-wing outlets friendly to him. He has leaked sensitive details about ongoing military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen on a Signal chat that also included a journalist. And he has given orders to bomb boats of suspected (but not proven) narco-traffickers in the Caribbean, killing the civilians on board.