Missing in the US Senate: Manliness! |
Missing in the US Senate: Manliness!
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth makes no bones about it. His goal is to restore what he calls a “warrior ethos” to the military. He started out by summoning 800 admirals and generals to a special meeting where he told them to shave their beards, cut their hair, lose weight, work out, pass a physical test twice a year and meet the “highest male standard” for combat. Note the word “male.”
Since then, Hegseth has blocked the promotion of several female officers, fired three top-ranking female admirals, eliminated the Pentagon’s Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, and required every member of the military over 30, male and female, be tested annually for testosterone. All toward making the military more “manly.”
But if Hegseth is concerned with a lack of manliness, he should focus not on the Pentagon but on the U.S. Senate — which has seldom seen a sadder display of lack of manhood than watching Republican Sens. Thom Tillis (N.C.), John Cornyn (Texas) and Bill Cassidy (La.) vote to confirm Todd Blanche, President Trump’s nominee for attorney general.
All three senators struggled to defend their vote, but their explanations fell flat for two reasons. First, Blanche is simply not qualified to be attorney general. For 20 years, he was just another ho-hum lawyer in New York, until he became Donald Trump’s personal lawyer in 2023. In that capacity, he defended Trump against hush money charges in the Stormy Daniels case, charges of stealing........