New York Times columnist David Brooks has some sharp words for Trump secretary of defense nominee Pete Hegseth -- and also for both the Republicans and Democrats who questioned him at this week's Senate confirmation hearings.
In his latest piece, Brooks declares Hegseth to be the defense secretary America deserves on the grounds that the United States is no longer a "serious country."
"We live in a social media/cable TV country," he writes. "In our culture you don’t want to focus on boring policy questions; you want to engage in the kind of endless culture war that gets voters riled up. You don’t want to focus on topics that would require study; you focus on images and easy-to-understand issues that generate instant visceral reactions. You don’t win this game by engaging in serious thought; you win by mere attitudinizing — by striking a pose. Your job is not to advance an argument that might help the country; your job is to go viral."
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He then chides Democrats for spending too much time questioning Hegseth about his past adulteries and Republicans for spending too much time praising Hegseth for his vows to fight "wokeness" in the military.
He also slams Hegseth for making his own culture-war obsessions the center of his case for being confirmed to run the world's most powerful military.
"During the hearings Hegseth repeatedly said he was going to defend the meritocracy," Brooks writes. In what kind of meritocracy is being a Fox TV host preparation for being secretary of defense? Maybe in the one Caligula fancied when he contemplated making his horse a consul."
To sum up the experience, Brooks writes that he "finished watching the hearings sick to my stomach."