re: "The Radical President's Radical Plans for the Pentagon"

Hugh Hewitt at Hewitt Blog ("Join the Hughniverse") blasted backdoor plans to hollow-out the military and navy.

Money quote(s):

"President Obama's plan to slash the size of the American military by at least 10% is dangerous and covered in a deceitful "strategic reassessment," which is a crude attempt to deflect attention from the bottom line of a much shrunken American military.

There is a fiscal crisis, but it isn't because of defense spending but because of entitlements which the president will not discuss in detail much less reform. Dramatic cuts in the number of soldiers, sailors and Marines are a substitute for the hard work of shrinking the payout state and cutting off the president's favored constituents. "

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"The failure of the Supercommittee and the train wreck of the debt ceiling showdown this past summer has left the House GOP divided and its freshman caucus demoralized and apparently defeated. But the House GOP simply has to rally to save the Pentagon from the president's wildly irresponsible plans."

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"A Harry Reid-led Senate so dysfunctional that cannot even pass a budget in three years ought not to be in charge of the nation's defenses and ought not to be allowed to cooperate in the gutting of the American military.

"Fund the Marine Corps not NPR" should be the theme of a growing pro-defense movement. The Ron Paul-led isolationist slice of the country has seen it voice amplified by the GOP debates, but the Iowa caucus showed again that it is a tiny, tiny part of the GOP and should be pushed aside by the traditional demand of Republicans for a strong and vibrant military defined by a 300 plus-ship Navy and the modern era doctrine of the ability to successfully fight two wars at the same time."

Fast forward to today, with just a few months before sequestration will take effect. All of which was completely predictable back when this can was kicked down the road to today.

"The reporters at the Pentagon didn't even go out and ask what it would mean to, say, the Marines to lose 10 to 15% of their troops, taking the Army from 570,000 to 520,000 and possibly as low as 490,000 and the Marines from 200,000 to at or below 180,000. To say, as the Washington Post did, that "new military strategy, contained in an eight-page document, will guide wrenching decisions on defense cutbacks," isn't reporting."

Well, they're journalists now, not reporters.

(Do try and keep up.)

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