Jon Stewart has been on a roll of late, taking on gun fetishists and modern capitalist apologists like Larry Summers alike. He has deftly dissected their canned answers and exposed the morally barren philosophies they believe support untenable positions.
During the first week of April, Stewart interviewed Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleeen Hicks at the War Horse Symposium, a journalism and public policy forum held in Chicago. The interview was wide-ranging, but during a solid nine-minute stretch, Stewart was able to navigate Hicks’ attempts at evasion in order to break down why exactly we non-military-hawk types are critical of our country’s bloated defense spending.
It was a masterclass in patience, and it began with Stewart asking, “Why is it that this organization, that is the most well-funded department out of anyone in our government, can't pass an audit and doesn't have a calculator?”
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Deputy Defense Secretary Hicks is a big defender of the increased budget for military spending that the Biden administration asked for. It is also important to note that enough Democratic and Republican representatives okayed this military spending for it to pass. Stewart’s question is a simple one, and really only requires a simple answer.
Hicks decided she would go with a tactic that Stewart has experienced time and time again, from bigwigs in business, Congress, and on courtroom benches: a mixture that is two parts condescension and one part not answering the question. First, these types pretend such a simple question shows a lack of sophistication in understanding the complex subject one is asking about; then they suggest that any follow-up questions pointing out the person isn’t answering the first question are somehow proof of partisanship or scattered thinking.
The defense secretary responded to Stewart's question by saying it's a "big answer," and that the "scale is massive.” Stewart attempted to give her an out, asking whether or not she believes it is “unfair” for him to ask such a question about a department of “this size and scope.”
Hicks, unable to get out of her increasingly defensive posture, condescended again. She acted as if she answered his question and then pretended that Stewart is feigning ignorance because he has a grand ulterior motive for wanting an answer to a question that she continues to not actually answer.
Hicks said, “I think you have a particular thing you really want to talk about in your asking me other questions, but I don't think it's unfair to ask me about the audit. It's absolutely the case that the United States military should be able to pass an audit and we've got to be on that pathway to get there.”
Stewart obviously seemed to get under Hicks’ skin by saying that the general point being discussed at the symposium is that “good journalism uncovers corruption.” In defense of the defense secretary, Stewart is now framing what Hicks’ chose to elude earlier, and she very quickly answers, “I mean, good journalism does uncover corruption, but I'm not sure these two things are linked.” Stewart knows that Hicks has now stepped in it by continuing to act obtusely, and he smiled and responded, “Ohhhh, but they are.”
Hicks chose to condescend further to Stewart, asking, “Do you know what an audit does?”
Stewart said he is pretty sure he does but that at issue here is the defense audit—the one that they cannot accomplish—is far too superficial and at best might note “whether they got delivered the thing that they ordered.” Hicks jumped on this, saying that this is what all audits are, to which Stewart explains that while that might be true superficially, most audits don’t include an entity that asks for hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars in spending.
HIcks forgets that while she can try and talk in circles, hoping to hypnotize everyone into boredom, Stewart isn’t letting go of this bone. It’s a simple question and she isn’t answering it. Hicks proceeds to talk about how an audit is “what was delivered to which place.” Of course, she then walks right back into the problem with her next assertion, saying the fact that the Department of Defense has been unable to pass an audit “is not suggestive of waste, fraud, and abuse.” She adds, “That is completely false right there.“
Stewart responds, “If I give you $1,000,000,000 and you can't tell me what happened to it, that to me is wasteful. That means you are not responsible. But if you can't tell me where it went, then what am I supposed to think?”
Stewart goes on: “I think most people would consider that somewhere in the realm of waste, fraud, or abuse, because they would wonder why that money isn't, well, accounted for. And especially when they see food insecurity on military bases and they see—”
Hicks cuts Stewart off again, but this time it is because she thinks she sees a way out of answering the question. She asks if Stewart wants to talk about food insecurity or the audit, implying that Stewart is all over the place. At the same time she also tries to demean his point on the military budget by passing it off as Stewart having a problem with “the dollars, which really bother you.” Stewart says the dollars aren’t what bothers him. It’s the spending.
Hicks attempts to treat Stewart like he just learned about audits and doesn’t know what he’s trying to say finally get to him, and you can see it on his face as he takes the gloves off.
“When I see a State Department get a certain amount of money and a military budget be ten times that. And I see a struggle within government to get people, like, more basic services. And then that department that got that, I mean, we got out of 20 years of war and the Pentagon got a $50 billion raise. Like that's shocking to me.
Now, I may not understand exactly the ins and outs, and the incredible magic of an audit, but I'm a human being who lives on the Earth and can't figure out how $850 billion to a department means that the rank and file still have to be on food stamps. Like, to me, that's fucking corruption.”
One of the frustrating things about bloated military spending is that conservative and liberal politicians have both been weak when it comes to forcing oversight. The reality is that most of the non-military social safety net cuts in spending are proposed by conservatives, and they frequently directly affect the lives of our service members and their families. And while conservatives will also make a point of demanding “accountability” when it comes to receiving food assistance or rent assistance or internet assistance for low-income Americans, they virtually never even feign the same concern for military spending.
Unless of course they are trying to investigate the mythical beast they call the “woke military.”
Enjoy the video here:
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