It's the money, honey, not the warfighter or winning wars

Yesterday, the Pentagon held four hours of press briefing on the budget. All three services presented. The event was mostly attended by legacy media reporters from the previous credentialed Pentagon Press Corp. Not many of the new press showed up, which is a slight on them, as the budget briefs are critical to the future of the U.S. military and the ability of the United States to defend itself and project power over the next few decades. This is something the new press should understand and want to cover.

I was in attendance and found what ensued over the next five hours very enlightening.

First, the legacy reporters and the Pentagon staff are on a first name basis. They greet each other with smiles in the hallways. There are no professional boundaries...at all. Sometimes they together bash the changes at the Pentagon instituted by Secretary Hegseth amongst themselves...meaning the legacy press corps and Pentagon officials together make derogatory banter. I have witnessed this phenomenon multiple times during several briefings over the last few months.

The open political talk against the administration and against Secretary Hegseth specifically from members of the legacy press corp in the Pentagon Briefing Room was shocking and seriously unprofessional. They don't try to hide it.

It is not obvious that any of these legacy reporters have military experience. Yet, they pride themselves on acronym use and knowledge of arcane Pentagon process, which is their job of course, but I was struck how there is no thought...at all...about the troops in the field or on winning conflicts.

Of course, how could they make intelligent questions about the impact of decisions in the field if they have no experience?

They simply want to know where the money is being spent, and look for holes in the adminstration's policy.

These people are not reporters. They are in actuality market intelligence agents for the defense contractors.

The Pentagon Press staff running the briefings called on the legacy media first by name with smiles. If they had time, they got around to the 'new guys'.

There were many questions on specific budget line items, but no real questions on the impact of the budget on the warfighter. None of the legacy press cared about that.

My sense is the legacy Pentagon Press existed not to be effective as the fourth estate, but to support and defend defense contractor line items in the budget.