I respect the Washington Post’s choice to keep a variety of political columnists on staff, though I often question the particular ones they’ve chosen. And I never read them. Today, though, I made an exception:
Enough, Sen. Tuberville. It isn’t ‘pro-life’ to damage military lives. by Hugh Hewitt, of all people!
Tuberville should immediately stop holding the military chain of command hostage. That was also the message delivered by retired U.S. Adm. James Stavridis in a radio interview with me on Monday. Stavridis noted that Tuberville is famed in Alabama for running the Auburn University football program, adding, “but this is not a game.”
For the five people in the US who don’t know what Hewitt is complaining about, Tubby is holding up all military promotions until the DOD stops paying for service members posted in states where abortions are effectively outlawed to travel to states where they can get an abortion. President Biden blasted Tubbs for this just last week.
Hewitt, it must be said, couldn’t resist his own condemnation of DOD policy:
Make no mistake, Austin’s policy choice is a terrible one . . . .
And, Hewitt adds, it cuts both ways. He quotes James Stavridis, a former NATO supreme commander:
“What happens when Senator Left Wing says ‘I’m not going to approve anyone until DOD cuts its entire fuel budget down to zero.’ Once we go down that path of allowing a particular senator who feels passionately about a particular issue, and I don’t doubt that [Tuberville] does, wait until the left starts using it and you have dragged our national security dead into the center of whirlpool of domestic controversy.”
Hewitt manages to make an even stronger case:
Uncertainty is just paralysis, and paralysis in the military can be deadly. On every level, this action by the Alabama senator is morally and strategically wrong, the sort of self-inflicted scar that invites a future Republican primary challenge, or maybe a faceoff against a retired military hero on the Democratic side.
I don’t know how much clout Hewitt carries in conservative circles, but given his long tenure at WaPo, it’s safe to say he speaks for far more than just himself. I strongly suspect this is another shot in the GOP campaign (led by McConnell) to get the tuber to go back underground (so to speak). This is a warning that not only is he damaging the military, he’s also damaging his own chances at re-election.
(There’s more in the same vein, but I’m running close to fair use limits.)