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Robert Lehrer's avatar

Well done, as always (so far) Old Curmudgeon.

A call to arms, but also some specific suggestions about how to fight the fight. NIcely framed in part by distinguishing between trial lawyers and litigators, a distinction very few non-lawyers understand. (The general public's understanding of trials is largely shaped by what they see in TV dramas featuring trials, or what the TV dramas call trials. The public has not the slightest clue, as you well understand. Trials are hugely more difficult than they are made to appear on TV. Which is why, after my initial looks, now many many years ago, of TV trials and TV trial lawyers, probably on Law and Order, I have never watched any TV show featuring same., my principal reasons for not doing so being jealousy and resentment: on my best trial days I have never been nearly as good as the average TV trial lawyer)..

But I digress. Let's move on to: (a) the major figure in your Substack essay, that would be Secy. of Defense nominee Pete Hegsweth (hereinafter the "Drunk"); and (b) a minor figure in your essay, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa (hereinafter the "Political Idiot").

As to the Drunk, it is a testament to the political (certainly not financial) poverty of the Senate that not a single senator, Republican or Democrat, declared, right out of the box, in substance: "the extremely credible allegations, essentially admitted to by the nominee, that he was a drunk are disqualifying from the outset. Even if his claims of rehabilitation and redemption are to be credited, he is being nominated to be the fuckin Secy of Defense, not the White House Social Director. There is no room for any risk, any risk at all, so far as the nomineefor that cabinet position is concerned, that the nominee will not be fully capable, i.e. not drunk, during the inevitable critical crises that he or she will be required to address,, sometimes on very short notice. . And when there is no room for any risk, no room for even five minutes of inebriation in say a four year term, here there is a a big time risk of much worse than that.

As to the Political Idiot, she bowed to threats that, absent her support, or at at least absent her retreat from her stated reluctance to support the Drunk, , she would be primaried from the right. She caved. Stupidly, in terms of her own political future. A politically smarter Senator, and, to be sure, I doubt whether Joni is considered a bright intellectual light even by her fellow senators, would have taken the contrary tack and thereby ensured not only her victory in any Republican primary challenge from the right, but in the general election as well. Here is a summary of her opening statement at the press conference called to announce her unyielding opposition to the Drunk as Secy. of Defense. "I've been threatened with all sorts of political retaliation, including being primaried in the next election, if I do not support the Drunk, the threats being accompanied by declarations that I owe President-elect Trump my allegiance. But I represent, and I owe my principal allegiance to the good citizens of the State of Iowa, and I am not going to sacrifice their safety and security for the sake of my political future. So come out after me proponents of confirming a drunk as Secy of Defense. I'll take my stand on the safety and security of the good citizens of Iowa, and the safety and security of all the citizens of this great country."

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