Hi everyone,
What a wild kerfuffle over Pete Hegseth, Caribbean drug boats, The New York Times and the Washington Post! Full disclosure, I spent the day yesterday at the Pentagon as part of the new media corps for that agency, and as such, was enmeshed in tours of the building and other entirely useless nonsense. Today I head back for more! Hopefully I will have more interest to report after the press conference this morning.
In the meantime, let's do a little dive into recent history. Back on September 2, Pete Hegseth ordered the destruction of yet another suspected drug boat in the Caribbean. I'm not a huge fan of the process by which this is being carried out, but that's not really the point. It happened. Surveillance footage showed that after the boat was blasted to smithereens, there were two survivors clinging to the wreckage.
Those survivors were blown apart in the water by a follow-up strike. The Washington Post, just three days ago, asserted that it was Hegseth who delivered the order to kill the survivors. It would be a ghastly thing, if true, and Democrat lawmakers wasted no time in freaking out about it. The Post said that Hegseth gave an advance directive to leave no survivors and that after the first strike didn't kill the men on board, another strike was ordered.
That strike was ordered by Admiral Bradley. However, The New York Times on Wednesday said that while Hegseth gave an order in advance to blow up the boat, Bradley gave follow-up orders that were not in response to the surveillance footage showing two survivors. The White House backed up Hegseth, but the White House is pretty much obligated to either back up Hegseth or fire him.
What is interesting is that these two legacy outlets, for the first time in a while, are contradicting each other and using their sources to provide differing information. Both outlets removed themselves from the Pentagon press corps in recent months over the Pentagon's demand that leaked, classified information from the Pentagon not make its way onto their pages.
I don't know if The Post Millennial or Human Events will get any groundbreaking reporting during our time at the Pentagon, in fact, I kind of doubt we will get much other than prepared statements. So far, there's been no opportunity to ask any real questions. Hopefully that changes today.
Libby