Strategy memo: feeding lions, eating zebras

I am getting today’s newsletter out later than I had hoped because I have been distracted by a crying Tucker. Here he is trying to tell me that it is the weekend, so I should be playing, not working!

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Pensacola Prince Andrew, aka Matt Gaetz, has been defenestrated. 

Good riddance. 

The next weakest targets are the alleged rapist Pete Hegseth and the registered Qatari agent Pam Bondi. 

Pete Hegseth (Getty Images) and Pam Bondi (Oliver Douliery via Getty Images)

The Democratic position should be communicated in simple words: an alleged rapist cannot command the American Armed Forces, and a Qatari whore, who cashed the checks of the government that harbored Hamas while they plotted October 7th, cannot be the chief law enforcement officer. 

Hakeem Jeffries should make his members read the Monterey California police report into the congressional record.  He should apply maximum pressure on the weakest Republican members who know their place in the MAGA herd is on its periphery — on the outside. There, they run against the headwind, and feel the full force of the dangers that lurk everywhere. 

There are a few predictable ingredients when it comes to creating political good fortune. 

The first is luck. The second is your opponent’s incompetence and overreach. 

Trump is overextended, and the transition plan has collapsed into a rubble of insanity 60 days before the inauguration. 

He has taken his first step backwards, and will take many more. 

The zebras on the outside of the herd are the ones who are most vulnerable. In this analogy, their names are Hegseth and Bondi. 

The Monterey police report established beyond a reasonable doubt that Hegseth is an epic buffoon. Truly. 

He may also be a rapist. 

He seems to have a problem with women. Big time. 

Something broke somewhere, and this ought to be explored psychiatrically and forensically under public examination before the Senate Armed Services Committee. 

According to Reuters, Trump plans to decapitate the senior leadership of the US military in a Stalin-esque  purge. Guilt by association and kangaroo justice await the men and women who have spent their entire lives in preparation for immense responsibilities and leadership. 

The good news is that behind them is another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another. 

On Thursday, Karoline Leavitt, Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman issued the following statement:

This report corroborates what Mr. Hegseth's attorneys have said all along: the incident was fully investigated, and no charges were filed because police found the allegations to be false. Pete Hegseth is a highly-respected Combat Veteran who will honorably serve our country when he is confirmed as the next Secretary of Defense, just like he honorably served our country on the battlefield in uniform.

Pete Hegseth should be brutally questioned about the US Navy and USMC and naval warfare theory, history, strategy and tactics. 

The attitude of the Democratic opposition concerning his service in Iraq should be…wait for it…”We don’t give a f@#k.” 

It doesn’t qualify him to be Secretary of Anything — let alone Secretary of Defense.

He should be derailed, mocked, humiliated, defeated and sent into a splendid exile on the Mar-a-Lago patio.

The whole lion pride should swarm the slowest zebra first — Hegseth — trip him, and then eat him. 

When he’s gone and left behind as proverbial bones to be bleached by the hot sun on the Savanna, it will be time to give chase to Bondi. 

She has fresh legs. Let her stretch them. She will not get far because she is running in Qatari quick sand. 

I have said many times that Donald Trump Jr. is a moron and proof that nepotism is a very bad thing. It does demonstrate that Trump had some insight when he had some reluctance to bequeath his name, lest his progeny be “a loser.” 

Junior has always reminded me of Uday, while Eric throws off more of a Qusay vibe. They are easy to mix up. 

At any rate, they were a big problem for Saddam because, in the end, they were Saddam’s kids, and it was just going to be really hard for them to turn out okay — like Eric and Junior. 

This is the point that really matters, especially if you are going to let Uday and Qusay pick the cabinet after their father buried their mother on the first hole of his golf course — after allegedly raping her years earlier. 

You get the point, right?

This is all madness. 

Make Pete Hegseth defend his depravity, his ethics, his unfitness and keep him pinned down. He is the top target.

Expose his profound and epic lack of knowledge, grasp of strategy, history and culture regarding the US military. 

There is an old USMC saying: it is the 7 Ps.

It stands for “prior proper planning prevents piss poor performance.” This philosophy must be embraced by the Democratic Senate minority, led by the comically inept Schumer.

The US Navy and the US Army are two of the country’s oldest institutions. They are venerable. They are powerful. They will weather Trumpism if for no other reason than the NCO corps is as steeped in the traditions as is the general officers. In fact, from a lived experience perspective, more so. People who live without a North Star or a code do not comprehend those who do. 

Let me tell you a story about the US Navy. 

Think about this, as the alleged rapist and AAA-certified Fox News morning doofus gets ready to sink it:

This is the story of an elegant lady and her master. Her Master is a woman. She commands an American warship, a 44-gun United States Class heavy frigate, personally named by George Washington.

She was designed by an American genius from Philadelphia and built by New Englanders in a Boston shipyard.  Her bow has sliced through all the Earth’s oceans, across four centuries of time.

American merchant ships and their crews were being preyed upon by the British and French Navies and looted by barbary pirates. 

The young Republic was dependent on trade and commerce. The Third Congress appropriated money for the construction of six warships under the Naval Act of 1794 to protect American shipping.

The construction of the ships was spread between six states and cities. Local economies boomed around the building of the most technologically advanced machines ever constructed on the North American continent.

They were the spacecraft of their age, marvels of science, engineering and design.  Though bigger than French and British frigates, they were smaller than the Capital ships of the great European naval powers. They were fast and their speed made them lethal under the command and crews of the born sailors who shaped the young United States and her Navy.

United States Ship is abbreviated as USS and precedes the name of an American Warship. What would be the names of the six ships?

 It is an interesting question to ponder. Surely, the naming of these first American warships would have been imbued with meaning in 1794. We know it was not a trivial decision, and that it was made at the highest levels of government. The Secretary of the Navy submitted a list of ten names for consideration to President George Washington. 

His office was as new as the country.  Since there was no precedent, the founding generation was forced to make it up as they went along. John Adams had proposed a style of adornment and address for the office that would have embarrassed a European aristocrat. Washington rejected the flowery titles in favor of Mr. President.

The naming of the ships was a Presidential decision, and they offer a window into what was viewed as important, significant and meaningful in a young country not yet powerful or secure.

The first ship was named the USS United States. 

One was named the USS Chesapeake, after the great Bay near Washington’s beloved Mount Vernon on the banks of the Potomac River.

Another, the USS Constellation, signified the constellation of stars on the blue corner field of the new red and white striped flag of the United States. 

One was named USS President. There was only one President in the 1790s. He was the only elected Head of State in the world and his name was Washington. 

King George III was curious about what a “President” would become and what Washington would do. He was astounded when he was told that his rival would transfer power voluntarily and return to Mount Vernon. The King said that if that were true then Washington would be the greatest man of his or any age.

There have been 46 American Presidents. Grover Cleveland counts for two. There have been great ones and bad ones. Honest ones and crooked ones. There have been successful ones and incompetent ones. There has only ever been one that has sought to break his promise and hold power against the will of the people. There are many names for such a person. American President has never been one of them.

Another was named USS Congress. The Congress was a co-equal branch of government that stood equally with the Article 2 and Article 3 branches of government created by the Constitution of the United States that imperfectly imagined a new nation with a new system of government into existence. The Congress was comprised of the elected Representatives of the American people. 

It was unique in all the world.

There have been 117 Congresses. They have been filled with American people from our greatest thinkers, leaders, statemen and women to our most sublime fools, imbeciles, crooks, cons, racists, ne’er-do-wells, seditionists and criminals. 

In the end, the United States Congress and the great Capitol Dome under which it meets is an extraordinary living achievement, a symbol of democracy and a raging hot mess.

The sixth ship is the USS Constitution. The USS Constitution endures.  She survives.  She has been fired upon, hit, damaged and fallen into periodic disrepair. She was forgotten, but her contribution remembered by the American people when it was retold in verse by Oliver Wendell Holmes in the 1830s. 

Her hull was lined by Paul Revere, and her masts came from long leaf pine from South Carolina. She was set to be scrapped, but was saved by contributions from America’s school children in the 1920s.

Today, she sits in a quiet corner of Boston Harbor. She is the oldest floating ship in the world and the oldest warship in the US Navy. She remains in active service. 

Our divided nation is at edge, in an angry hour where extremism has seized power with a seething contempt for American freedom and the Constitution.

It seems significant and worth remembering that none of those first six ships designed to protect a fragile freedom were named USS Supreme Court. 

A radical court has acted in the name of the Constitution by stripping rights away from a specific category of Americans for the first time in history.  It represents a type of judicial tyranny and societal engineering that is as radical and foolish as it is destabilizing.

The Constitution of 1787 was not perfect. It was far from just. It was, however, an incomparable work of genius that gave each generation of Americans a chance to create a more just society – to perfect the Union.

The American Constitution endures. It makes the United States of America a young nation and the oldest constitutional republic in the world.

Her namesake will fire a 21-gun salute on July 4th, 2026, to the United States of America in celebration of the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States. 

She is undefeated. She is the USS Constitution.

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