Friday, January 11, 2013

Steyn: Why Hagel, Why Now?

Leave it to Mark Steyn to put it very clearly and simply:

Why Hagel, why now? 

"The Pentagon," he said a year ago, "needs to be pared down.

"Unlike current Secretary Leon Panetta, who's strongly opposed to the mandated "sequestration" cuts to the defense budget, Hagel thinks they're merely a good start."

I'm laughing and crying reading it, and read the whole thing you must. 

Which phrase do I like the best?

The "court eunuchs of the palace media"?

The idea of Hagel more appropriately serving in the "Department of Zionist and Homosexual Regulatory Oversight"? Or the passing reference to Kipling. Is there any other popular essayist in America today that can so effortlessly throw Kipling into the mix? (Answer: no.) Do kids nowadays (and by kids, I mean anyone under 40) even know who Kipling was? (DON'T ANSWER THAT!!)

And then, "the real question":

"But beyond the politics is a real question. He's not wrong to raise the question of Pentagon "bloat." The United States has the most lavishly funded military on the planet, and what does it buy you? In the Hindu Kush, we're taking 12 years to lose to goatherds with fertilizer."

"Something is wrong with this picture."