In the end, it was mostly blither. When Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth announced a gathering of some 800 generals and admirals (with their senior enlisted advisers), rumors ran wild. Was the administration going to switch the commissioning oath so that officers swear fealty to the president rather than the Constitution? Was the secretary of defense going to publicly dismiss stunned three and four stars? Would he declare an American withdrawal from Europe and Asia to concentrate on hemispheric defense? Would he at least reveal the outlines of the new National Defense Strategy? None of those things happened.
Instead, we got a great deal of verbal incontinence, of two different sorts. President Donald Trump—who initially seemed not to have heard about this planned gathering, but when he did decided to join because it seemed like fun—followed the secretary with more than an hour of meandering whines, boasts, and half-hearted attempts at humor. He appeared tired, his voice raspy, his attention span even shorter than usual; he joked feebly about not wanting to trip while walking downstairs.
There was plenty of nastiness to be sure—unremitting sneers at his pr
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