Opportunities for the Democrats

I’m going to break the first and second rules of punditry: 1. Never look back, and 2. Never admit you were wrong. Last week, I implied strongly that Pete Hegseth’s nomination for SecDef was doomed. I might have been premature, or even mistaken. The nomination seems to have taken on new life (like a vampire). Joni Ernst, who seemed to be far from supporting Hegseth, has signaled that she is at least willing to hear him out at the confirmation hearings. Many in the commentariat, not to mention members of the Chicken Little Caucus and the Nothing-Can-Be-Done Club, have decided that Democrats can only accept the flood of drunks, crooks, incompetents and fools that Trump is appointing.

But the recent developments present Democrats with an opportunity. Even if they cannot derail all of the awful candidates, they can illustrate to voters why Trump will be an awful president, and start the inevitable decline in his position and his power. What we Democrats must not do is to throw up our hands. Instead, Democratic senators need to prepare to make the confirmation hearings the kind of riveting public events that they have been in the past—think of the hearings on Brett Kavanaugh or (for those old enough) Clarence Thomas. Note that the presidents who nominated them were defeated a few years later, and that those hearings played a part.

And there is a chance, perhaps a good one, that some of the nominees can be defeated, if Democrats are prepared and effective. I certainly hope that Democratic senators are assembling evidence and working out strategies to illustrate how awful the nominees are. That’s easier said than done. Most senators are not trial lawyers, and many of them think that they must always be the most important person in the room. They tend to be tied to their scripts. I recall watching the Clarence Thomas hearings on TV, when it looked like he would be taken down until he accused the Democrats of engaging in a “high-tech lynching.” I sat there begging Ted Kennedy or one of the other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee to break in and say, “Judge, it is up to you to prove your credentials for the job you seek, it is not up to us to show that you are unfit.” Which he was and is. Such a declaration might have sunk Thomas, but no one made it. So, we’ll just have to see whether Senate Democrats can meet the challenge. For those who are not trial lawyers (not “litigators,” but people who actually try cases), I suggest that they consult with one or two before the hearings. Oh, and leave your ego in your office when you go to the committee room.

Hegseth is the most obviously vulnerable of Trump’s important nominees. He is the guy who said, “This is the biggest deployment of my life, and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing it,” which is a confession that he’s a drunk—we can just hope some Democrat will tell him that outright. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, (R. OK) told Jake Tapper that Hegseth may have have a drinking problem, but a lot of politicians have drinking problems. Will a Democrat point out to the nominee and other senators that being Secretary of Defense is a more sensitive position than being one member of a body with 99 others? Let’s hope so. And, as we know, there’s a lot more ammunition waiting to be fired at the nominee. There’s that sexual assault (rape) allegation that he settled with a non-disclosure agreement a few years ago. If the woman he attacked won’t come forward (which I could easily understand), Democrats should subpoena a copy of the agreement, redacted to make the accuser unidentifiable. It will make a lovely exhibit for the record. And Democrats should insist that Hegseth tell us how much he paid and—equally important—where the money came from.

That’s only the preliminary material. Hegseth needs to be grilled on his management experience—the two small veterans’ organizations that he apparently ran into the ground—and asked why he is qualified to run the largest organization in the world. He needs to be examined about his knowledge of DOD’s structure, and of the responsibilities he wants to undertake. Does he know, for instance, that the Secretary has no command authority? He should be led through his various comments critical of women in the military (the current Chief of Naval Operations is a woman), and examined closely about his recent, convenient conversion. Hegseth’s nomination may get through the Republican-majority Senate, but it should be a millstone around the necks of the senators who vote for him, and a fully-illustrated primer on the intent of the new Trump maladministration to subvert government.

Hegseth is—as you will have figured out—only one of many Trump appointees who should be laughed off of the stage. There is Kristi (“Puppy Slayer”) Noem for Secretary of Homeland Security, who cannot visit substantial portions of her own state, because she has been banned by all the Native American nations in South Dakota. A woman with no security experience, she has the thinnest credentials to lead a huge, vital and sprawling agency essential to the nation’s well-being.

Then there is Kash-and-Carry Patel, who thinks law-enforcement should be used for personal and professional revenge. I’d love to see him grilled about details of the FBI’s investigation of January 6th and the hiding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. He should surely be questioned closely about his vow to close the FBI’s headquarters and turn it into a museum of the “deep state”, and how he would administer the Bureau if that were to be done. Close questioning about his knowledge of the FBI’s jurisdiction and the details of law-enforcement operations would also be good for the public to see.

We are in a situation where the incoming president wants to kneecap government, to treat it like his family business (remember his six bankruptcies) and to reward his sycophants at the public trough. If Republican senators will not step up—and there’s no sign that they will—Democrats must make a maximum effort to inform the public about the storm about to break over all of our heads.

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