The One Thing That Isn't Pete Hegseth's Fault Here
And it must be true, because I am only sympathetic to SECDEF inasmuch as he looks like my favorite actor.
Fox and Friends co-host turned Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth - or as I call him, Bizarro Timothy Olyphant - is having quite a spring. A month ago, he was widely blasted for accidentally including the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic in the Signal chat group he was using to coordinate air strikes in Yemen—and for using Signal, a commercial app anyone could use (read: anyone could hack), for such a purpose in the first place.
Hegseth took the opportunity to display the strict moral and ethical standards to which he holds himself, denying the entire story. Apparently he saw fit to tell this—shoot, what is that technical literary term? Oh, that's right: “lie"—because the subject of the chat was being called "war plans," when the more accurate term would have been "attack plans."
Yet I am very sure some right-leaning, non-MAGA types took this denial to mean that Hegseth legitimately contested the entire story of the leak: that maybe there was a possibility that the shockingly bad judgment call everyone was buzzing about was just a liberal smear campaign, and it didn't really happen.
Welp. Sorry.
Further, Hegseth claimed that the texts did not actually contain classified information, instead characterizing the contents of the messages as "informal, unclassified coordinations”—hmm. This despite the fact that Vice President JD Vance clearly believed the group was communicating privately, confessing that "I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now."
As much flak as Hegseth took for this seemingly wild indiscretion, Trump stood by him. Well, sure, he did! After all, who hasn't accidentally texted secret military attack plans to a prominent journalist? “Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone,” etc.
Plus, Trump is not the type to let a bad headline get in his way. Or, you know, a felony conviction.
Given this grace, the thing for Pete to do here would have been to delete all traces of Signal on his work and home devices and select a much more secure protocol, so he could truthfully say that the Signal use had ceased. But that's not what happened.
Instead of distancing himself from both the Signal platform and the story, Hegseth's Signal habits are back in the news with this week's discovery that he shared this same information with a second group consisting of his personal lawyer, his wife, and his brother, among other non-Pentagon folks who have nothing at all to do with the matter and have no reason to be receiving this kind of stuff.
As you might expect, the memes are flying fast and furious—not unlike missiles in a certain air strike in Yemen that everyone and their mother seems to have been notified of. Most have been to the general effect that - to put it politely - perhaps a TV host with a drinking problem was not the best pick to immediately transition to running the entire military—on the understanding that he'd be newly stone-cold sober
And indeed, it's hard to read these actions otherwise than as those of a drunk person. Hegseth is a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan by virtue of his National Guard service, both in his native Minnesota and in DC. I'm willing to extend to him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he's familiar with the way the military works and the standards of comportment to which it holds its members.
So what else could possibly explain all of this? I mean, Timothy Olyphant would never!
It's the drinking problem. It's got to be.
See, accidentally texting attack plans to a prominent journalist sure does sound like the kind of thing you'd have to be drunk to do, or at least drinking. And over the years, there have been multiple instances of colleagues being concerned about Hegseth's drinking, including one positively cringeworthy affidavit from a former sister-in-law that spoke of him going to clubs and getting lap dances while in uniform, and that, on a separate occasion, he was once “dragged out of a bar and yelled ‘No means yes!’ as he was being walked home by [the former sister-in-law] and others.”
But that can't be! Why, Peter Brian Hegseth assured everyone that if he were confirmed for the job, he would simply stop drinking. Didn't he?
Yeah. He did. But unfortunately, that was a promise that was made to be broken. And I'll go so far as to say that it was a promise Hegseth never could have kept.
Not because he's an overgrown frat boy, or a fundamentally un-serious dudebro who's liable to get us all killed: well, not entirely because of those things. Instead, what Hegseth may not have known—what I wish I could tell him—is that an alcoholic can't simply stop drinking before they start the big job. That's not how alcoholism works.
Hi, I'm Sally! I'm an alcoholic. Next month, I will celebrate 14 years of sobriety, and in that time, I've helped and gotten to know many, many, many alcoholics at various points on their journeys.
And I can tell you that quitting for someone or something else, something external, never really sticks—even a really cool position that will put the person on the national stage or in a position of great power. The alcoholic has to really want to stop. Really: He or she has to lie there in bed at night or sit there in the car at 2 pm and think, “God, I wish I could quit drinking."
Then, according to AA, which is not my personal flavor of sobriety, but is the most effective program out there, on top of that desire, the alcoholic must make a decision—not just melodramatically declare whole nursing a hangover1—that they will no longer ingest alcohol.
Not "until this period is over." Not "for now." And certainly not "until I get a handle on things!" No, the alcoholic has to decide that they will straight-up never drink again.
But once that decision is made, the alcoholic isn't out of the woods.
The fact is that most of us cannot just stop. Even when we want to.
Why not? Though the spirit may be willing, quitting a long-term heavy drinking habit cold turkey is incredibly dangerous. The person might have violent seizures, experience psychosis or delirium tremens, or even die without this substance their body has learned to need pressing down on their GABA receptors.
Remember, after many years of substance abuse, the alcoholic is no longer drinking to feel good. There is no feeling “good” anymore. He or she is drinking to feel normal.
Now, I'm not saying that your dad didn't quit the day he learned your mom was pregnant. I'm not saying your grandpa didn't hear from his doctor that one more drink would kill him, and just stop entirely. Yes, people survive it.
But it's by no means assumed that a person will be fine. Instead, the thing to do is to taper off slowly under a doctor's instructions - or to detox in a medically-supervised rehabilitation facility.
So if I were Pete Hegseth right now, I'd submit some time off while I was still employed and check into a rehab clinic - for surely he's ready, finally, to see what the sober life can do for him.
Then I'd pack up a duffel bag and head out, letting any future Signal scandals (sending nuclear codes to his personal trainer, perhaps, or sharing details with his kids for a genre-defining Show and Tell session?) land as feathers upon the softness of empathy for my admission that I'm an alcoholic.
And I need help.
But something tells me Pete Hegseth doesn't respond to kindness. So I'll close with a line every alcoholic knows to be true:
Hey, Pete! You know, you can't bullshit a bullshitter!
