Barking Up The Wrong Scripture

Some of you may think the job of the SECDEF is to advise POTUS, confer with senior leaders on strategy, acquisitions, R/D, and other boring stuff. It's not.
It's to do PT with kids and bark Old Testament passages at them while losing a war to a third-rank power in the Gulf. https://t.co/RWSgVV5mQM

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 19, 2026

Isaiah 6:8 in context:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

9 He said, “Go and tell this people:

“‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never
perceiving.’
10 Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull
and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
11 Then I said, “For how long, Lord?”

And he answered:

“Until the cities lie ruined
and without inhabitant,
until the houses are left deserted
and the fields ruined and ravaged,
12 until the Lord has sent everyone far away
and the land is utterly forsaken.
13 And though a tenth remains in the land,
it will again be laid waste.
But as the terebinth and oak
leave stumps when they are cut down,
so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.”

There’s a lot going on here: the theophany in the throne room of God. That God even has a throne room. The doxology that found its way into a hymn used in some traditions to open every worship service. The awe-ful otherness of God (Moses stood in God’s presence on Sinai, and came down with his face shining in a reflection of the doxa, or glory, of God. Just the doxa on the mountain, the theophany of it, scared the people of Israel so badly they hid in their tents.) And, of course, the commission of Isaiah, one of the major prophets of Israel.

And Hegseth just perverts it all into a cheap stunt with some college kids. This is what we voted for. This is who the Senate voted to approve.