The Witness Chronicles, 3/25/25

Monumental incompetence

Mar 25, 2025

red and blue mermaid tail illustration — Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash

Trump Dudes Seriously Effed Up, But Now It Didn’t Happen

Their response? It didn’t happen. Geez.

Ok, I try not to get too cynical here but yesterday’s monumental national security f-up and the response from the White House today show just how dedicated they are to creating an alternate reality. Their assumption is that all of us are idiots who will believe anything.

I don’t know about you but I am offended and alarmed at their unbelievable incompetence when it comes to protecting our military secrets and personnel. But I’m even more alarmed at their blatant lying as the story builds momentum and the facts pile up.

As I wrote about yesterday, the focus today is directly on Congress, particularly the Republicans who historically have owned the oversight of military intelligence. So far they are waffling and changing the subject, no big surprise there.

House Speaker Johnson, when asked about the scandal, claimed he was unaware of it because he was ‘working’. That might be the lamest lie I’ve heard so far.

The takeaways right now are that no ally will share intelligence with us. And that the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth only cares about spinning the screwup to protect himself. A reminder: the people endangered by this incredibly sloppy mess are military service people, the people Hegseth represents and has sworn to defend.

Now that this is out there, if any of our adversaries are not yet monitoring Signal, the chat app they used, you better believe they are all over this today.

So, only two months into this administration, they have seriously compromised all of our intelligence infrastructure in multiple ways that cannot be undone. That’s very bad but their response is, frankly, appalling and childish in its sheer idiocy. Insulting Jeff Goldberg, the journalist who was unwittingly included on the chat thread, makes no sense and is obviously nothing more than a clumsy misdirection.

Clumsy is a mild description for how incompetent and dangerous all of this is. Goldberg is the editor of The Atlantic, a liberal but respected publication known for careful reporting, not some alarmist lib website and, in contradiction to Trump’s claims, a financially stable business backed by Lauren Jobs, Steve Jobs’ billionaire widow.

The clumsy (yes, that word keeps coming up) attempts to somehow place blame on Goldberg for breaking this story, ignore the fact that he didn’t go after it. He was unwittingly placed on the chat and only realized it was not a hack when the specific attack plans being discussed became reality just a few hours after he received them.

Goldberg’s journalistic integrity is rock solid here. He did the responsible thing and broke the story of the incredible leak but did not reveal any classified information that might endanger our soldiers and sailors.

So, what are we left with? An administration making excuses, punishing no one, insulting responsible journalists, and a Republican-led Congress pretending this is not a big deal, which it definitely is.

The only person in the White House not in panic mode is probably Elon Musk, who somehow managed to not be in the middle of this mess, probably the only time so far he has not been there. Guess he has been too busy trying to destroy Social Security, something no sane politician would touch with a hundred foot pole. But he is not a politician. And neither are most of the players in this most recent farce.

How much more has to happen before the American people get truly angry? Anger is certainly stirring but prior to Trump, any of this kind of stuff would have brought down any politician or public figure. Yet somehow, things like this have become acceptable. A convicted felon gets elected President. Accused rapists are at the highest levels of leadership, including our Defense Department, the largest and most powerful military organization on the planet.

In the face of this the lack of outrage in Congress, including Democrats, is unbelievable, even inconceivable prior to recent years. If we actually have another election cycle, we need to do some serious housekeeping and kick all of those staying silent out of office. Because they share the responsibility for this atmosphere of constant lying and making excuses for the inexcusable.

Once again, the only word for all of this is shameful, but that does not seem to matter to these people. They do not show any concern for the lives of the citizens they represent nor is there any respect for the gravity of the issues they are dealing with here, literally life or death, and national security.

A personal note. It is bewildering trying to keep up with this stuff. There are a lot of writers trying but every time it seems that it can’t get worse or more bizarre, it does and becomes orders of magnitude crazier. I write another newsletter about personal growth and it has languished unwritten because politics has become a story I can’t ignore. Like a lot of us, I feel like we all need a break from this but that is not happening and there is no sign of a break in the future.

A lot of us knew another Trump term would be nuts but not on this level. He and his cohort are out to destroy the fabric of our society and do not care who gets hurt. That callousness and their purely selfish need for retribution are incomprehensible. But I, for one, need to try to understand and write my take on it, though I am feeling the need to get back to writing about positive things in my life. There are many and I am infinitely thankful for them.

That keeps me going.

The Witness Chronicles, politics decoded

Discussion about this post