Is Pete Hegseth Qualified to Run the Military? Wrong Question.

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

69% : He added, "That may be what makes Mr. Hegseth an excellent choice, just like" -- referring to Trump -- "that New York developer who rode down the escalator.
55% : And Trump was now the audience of one to whom Hegseth was directing all of his responses.
50% : Trump had clinched the Republicans' loyalty ahead of the hearing.
46% : Meanwhile, Democrats, beginning with the ranking member and former chairman, Jack Reed of Delaware, noted the many ways that Hegseth lacked the "unparalleled experience, wisdom, and above all character" for the job, which involves leading the 3.4 million men and women in the Department of Defense and its $850 billion budget.
45% : But even his supporters -- and, as Jane Mayer reports in the New Yorker, Trump has rallied a massive lobbying effort to ensure that Hegseth, whose rejection seemed likely, had ample supporters -- allowed that Hegseth has an atypical résumé for the job.
40% : At one point, Hegseth asserted that military recruitment has picked up since Trump was elected, because young people see a commander in chief who won't burden them with "social engineering."
38% : Well, Trump had nominated him to run the Pentagon.
32% : Trump even floated the name of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a possible replacement, but when that notion received no support among his entourage, he doubled down on Hegseth, turning the battle over his nomination into a demonstration of Trump's own strengthThat demonstration was on display in the committee room, as even Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, an Army veteran who had lambasted Hegseth for his many statements opposing the recruitment of women for combat slots, indicated -- through a clearly rehearsed set of questions (many of them preceded by "As we discussed ...") -- that she would vote for Hegseth after all, ending any suspense about his fate, at least at this stage of the process.
12% : No one openly recalled that Trump himself was at one point ready to dump the nominee after learning that Hegseth's behavior had once sparked a criminal investigation, a matter that was settled by a financial payment and a nondisclosure agreement -- incidents that Hegseth had failed to reveal either to Trump or his transition team when interviewed for the job.

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