Unserious Putdowns

You have to consider the source

The current narrative by opponents of the administration is that its various department secretaries are in over their heads. As opposed, you know, to their ultra-competent predecessors.

Thus, when Pete Hegseth, secretary of defense, removed Democratic party icon Susan Rice from Pentagon advisory committees, her response was to label him a lightweight. “Well, if you’re a white male Christian cisgender macho MAGA man, you can be as dumb as a rock and be deemed qualified to serve as secretary of Defense.”

This would be the same Susan Rice who oversaw student loan relief for President Biden, a student loan forgiveness plan that was struck down by the Supreme Court. Pretty dumb oversight, Susan. She also was a principal White House advisor on immigration when Biden was flying noncitizens into the country willy-nilly and letting the border be overrun. That travesty, too, has been stopped. Maybe Rice didn’t notice what was happening.

Her comments are just political putdowns, of course, and mildly amusing. The whole idea that Rice and Company are superior administrators is absurd. Pots calling kettles black. They bollixed things big-time without being held accountable and actually believe no one noticed.

Does Afghanistan ring a bell? A frenetic withdrawal from that country left 13 Americans dead, Afghan supporters stranded and $7 billion in state-of-the-art military equipment in the hands of the Taliban. Amateur hour.

Benghazi in Libya was another bungled foreign adventure where missed signals and belated responses left Americans—including our ambassador—dead. The secretary of state and White House, including Susan Rice, never would own up to what was happening till it was too late. Keystone Kops.

Crimea was absorbed by Russia without so much as a “Hey, Vladimir!” from the same administration that fostered the risible Russia-Russia collusion hoax and other fables. Clearly, unserious actors were running our foreign and domestic desks in those years. Major media never called them on it because they were too busy playing along and pocketing Pulitzers for their connivance. Vaudeville actors all.

So, there is serious and unserious. The more serious part of Rice’s denunciation of Hegseth is the litany of adjectives she spouts—"white male Christian cisgender”—all of which are intended to be pejoratives. None of them, of course, is a relevant qualification for secretary of defense or any other government leadership position.

But this is a woman whose black-skinned boss was accorded a Nobel Peace Prize for being elected president of the United States. The Nobel committee cited his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” which was quite a feat considering he had been president all of 11 days when the nomination window closed. Rice lives in that world, where skin color and sexual inclinations matter more than merit.

They are ideologues, in a word. As Thomas Sowell once noted, such people don’t admit error. “Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts, but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.” Dogmatists bark mindlessly about others. Just ignore ’em.