Secretary Sh*tfaced Goes To France, Insults Europe, Belches, Leaves
Maybe Trump officials should just stay out of Europe.
On Saturday, America’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth awoke in what we can only imagine was some dumpster or another, peeled himself off the sticky, used-diaper-strewn bottom, and made his way to Normandy to give a speech marking the 82nd anniversary of D-Day. His 13-minute ramble in front of assembled leaders and dignitaries was notable for two things: likening the Nazis’ defending beaches in 1944 to the Europeans needing to defend those same beaches today, and a surprising lack of slurring.
No, really. The man used a D-Day commemoration, in a cemetery where the remains of thousands of American soldiers lie in France, to chastise Europe’s immigration policies. It was one of the more undignified diplomatic fuckups we can recall from a presidential administration that has been nothing but undignified fuckups.
If one day we die alone in our apartment and no one notices until the smell drifts out into the hallway, and the cops break down the door and find our corpse half-eaten by our cats, we will still have more dignity than the Trump administration has ever managed to have about anything.
The relevant part of the speech starts around the 10:20 mark.
“Sadly, today different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies, which is in Spain, in Italy, in Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Or is it too late? I pray not, and I believe not.”
This was perhaps the most awkward analogy of all time. What was the dangerous ideology storming Europe’s beaches 82 years ago? Does Hegseth think the democracy being brought to France’s shores by allied soldiers in 1944 was a dangerous ideology? Because we’re guessing Germany’s Nazi regime would agree with that.
Hegseth managed to badly offend pretty much everyone, as is his wont. The Guardian quoted one British historian calling the speech “a special kind of loathsomeness: a blend of historical deafness, grotesque stupidity and comically ludicrous self-importance.” What this historian perhaps didn’t realize is that such a description applies to Hegseth and all his public pronouncements on a constant basis.
The historian also called the secretary of Defense a “comic book nobody,” which is about the most accurate descriptions we’ve ever heard of Pete Hegseth.
Another Brit, high-ranking member of the Ministry of Justice Jake Richards, said he hopes Hegseth “regrets” his “totally inappropriate and wrong” comments. Ha ha, shows what you know, buddy! Pete Hegseth is a WARRIOR, with a WARRIOR ethos that he uses for WARFIGHTING, and America’s WARRIORS don’t have time to listen to your namby-pamby whining about diplomacy and appropriate times to raise political issues. Not when there are WARS for the WARFIGHTERS to fight! Not when, as Hegseth told his audience, America is too busy reviving a modern-day WARRIOR ethos at the Department of WAR!
YAAARRGGGGH!
Congrats to Europe for sitting through more of Hegseth’s “warrior ethos” crap, which he brings up in every public appearance no matter how dumb he sounds, repeating the words constantly like a busted speak-and-sing doll stuck in a loop.
Hegseth also chastised the Europeans for allegedly being bad allies, saying America expects them to be “capable and ready to stand alongside us,” presumably to ward off our leaders’ paranoid, Camp of the Saints-inspired vision of dusky Third World hordes overrunning Europe.
The speech was so bad that residents of the French village that hosted the main remembrance ceremony on Saturday told reporters they were glad when Hegseth skipped it. From France24:
“He has very warlike views and it seems to us that this man does not share our democratic values,” Sylvie Lamy Thepaut, a member of the municipal association Langrune en commun, told BFM TV.
A message on the association’s website called for Hegseth’s visit to be cancelled on the grounds that the Pentagon chief “espouses values contrary to democracy, human rights and peace” and had made “numerous anti-European remarks”, “warlike statements” and “American supremacist pronouncements”.
He did do all that. And just to drive home the point, Hegseth allowed two of his kids who accompanied him on the trip to dress up in full camouflage fatigues while they visited the American cemetery and met World War II vets. It gave the whole thing a real “North Korean potentate taking his kids to observe ballistic missile launches” vibe.
On the plus side, we think Hegseth looks grayer and older and more tired than he did a year ago. If he wasn’t telling Megyn Kelly the absolute truth when he promised to never drink a drop if he can just be WAR secretary, pretty please, we’d be inclined to suggest that running the Defense Department in between vodka benders might finally be taking a toll on the guy.
[The Guardian / France24]
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As much as I hate these people, I think I don't hate them enough.
So. Why the fuck did the assembled 'leaders and dignitaries' not stand up and walk the fuck out on him?
Did they politely laugh at his little jokes? Did they politely clap at the end? (not watching/listening to it, you can't make me, you're not my real dad anyway!)
Fuck that fucking shit.