Dakota Beacon

This is written in the wake of Matt Gaetz’s decision to relinquish the nomination of Attorney General.  Many of us regret this decision, but perhaps Gaetz is right that his confirmation process would unquestionably have become a sideshow.  The reason he has given for dropping out is a legitimate one, although some will say he didn’t want the scrutiny of hearings into his personal life.  Fair enough.  So Trump, also flawed, moves on to another choice for the position.  

It is all such a shame and a loss for the country because what we need most is someone who is not afraid of criticism, not afraid of not being liked by one and all, who would prefer to just clean house of the vermin that has been inhabiting it.  Gaetz was that guy.  We shall see about Pam Bondi, whom Trump has named in his stead.

Now we come to Pete Hegseth.  Many of us cheered his nomination who have watched him report knowledgably on world affairs and especially military affairs.  He has the background to know what he is talking about.  Unfortunately he also has a background in seedy living.  This grown man, probably using the excuse of his military service or whatever has traumatized him, has a pattern of chasing women.  He cheats on his wives as a matter of course.  He jumps in the sack with randos he meets at bars and “conferences”.  He is a chronic offender and seems to have no feelings of remorse, simply moving on.  His behavior leaves wives and children littered along the shores of his life of pleasure pursuit.  Now, at the risk of sounding a bit prudish in the 21st Century, this is not the character of a man who should be anywhere near our national security interests.  There are several reasons why this is not an acceptable lifestyle for the head of the Department of Defense.  

One is the “old-fashioned” one of vulnerability to blackmail.  You might argue that someone who has such a lousy reputation with women would be beyond blackmail, but you never know.  He might discover someone he actually does care about to whom this would matter.  Or someone he beds down might just have sinister aspects he would not want everyone to know about.  Which brings us to the next reason - what if the next female who takes his fancy is an agent or asset of a foreign country (or even of entities within our own country) who would be able, through these trysts, to take advantage of his “position” for their own ends?  Isn’t this a concern?  And we should also recognize that a man who cannot be faithful to his own wife and to his own children, who is okay with casting them aside for the excitement of whatever floozy he finds at closing time in some bar, might not be all that faithful, period.  

There are reasons why character matters.  While anyone might have some episode in an active life which he’d rather not share with the whole world, a person who repeats over and over these episodes, who cannot control himself and is driven by the desire of the moment, is just not fit to head up a major enterprise of any kind.  For half a century, we had at the head of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover, a man who kept dossiers on leaders - people who lived outside the socially acceptable limits.  He controlled those people.  He, himself, was controlled because he, too, had no self-control and lived a secret life he dared not have exposed.  People scratched their heads when he said there was no such thing, for example, as the Mafia.  Why would anyone say such a thing?  Everyone else on earth was aware of the Mafia.  Well, after his death we all found out why he “believed” there was no such thing.  Who knows the real consequences of his secret files on other leaders.  He was extremely dangerous to our country.

Trump, being somewhat outlandish himself in his private life, has invited a lot of scurrilous accusations from some highly questionable “victims”.  We have come to discredit many of them.  Maybe he thinks this applies to his picks for cabinet posts, etc., that they, too, can get away with spotty personal lives.  Trump was elected because he had to be - there is no way America could survive any more of the insanity that was spewing out of the Left, from foreign wars to spending us into oblivion, to porn in our public schools to crime and open borders.  No way.  Maybe he thinks he is thus exonerated.  For many of his voters he is not necessarily exonerated.  He was literally the only port in the storm.  He had to be elected.  Many of those who voted for him openly dislike him.  One hopes that he will come to terms with the fact that he is not loved and forgiven for everything by everyone in his following.  His own leadership has been somewhat squandered by his own foolish behavior with women.  

Just because Bill Clinton got away with this, we have thought it was fine to turn a blind eye to this kind of character flaw, but it really is not.  

I would hope that Hegseth follows Gaetz’s example and forfeits the honor of serving as head of the Department of Defense.  It is fair to say that he bought his lifestyle at the expense of this post.  We should not risk someone in this department who cannot conduct his own life with some degree of propriety.  In Gaetz’s case, his affair with his accuser began when, unbeknownst to him, she was a minor.  It apparently resumed when she reached the age of majority.  It was, perhaps a fluke - we have not heard from multiple accusers.  But apparently he does not cheat on his wife.  That is a huge difference.  Of course, a proper man would not jump into bed with a woman whose age he did not even know - but that is the price of our 21st Century attitude toward casual sex.  It is wrong and this is why our forebears shunned it (it existed, of course, but it was shunned).  I think of the many promising leaders on whose private lives their careers came aground - men like Charles Parnell, who might have spared Ireland the terrible years of its revolution and civil war, but for his dalliance with a married woman.  There is much to be said for leading a respectable life - and those who cheat on their spouses have little to recommend them, whatever their other talents and experience.  

Character matters - even in 2024.  It always has, and for good reason.  Our country suffers when our leaders pursue a lifestyle of libertine abandon.  Firstly, we are compromised along with them, and secondly, if we decline to be we are denied the talents they would bring to important positions  No one is perfect, no one has led a perfect life, but there must be some kind of acknowledgement and accountability and reform or we should not allow them to lead.  

We welcome your opinions - please address comments to (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and put "Dakota Beacon" in your subject line.