Dead Drop: December 16

RETIRED SENIOR OFFICERS NEED NOT APPLY:  The lead item in last week’s Dead Drop was about a public opinion poll indicating that public confidence in the U.S. military has dropped dramatically over the past four years. Well, this week former Under Secretary of Defense (comptroller) Dov Zakheim has a solution which he provided in an OPED in The Hill, “Retired senior military officers should not engage in partisan politics”. Zakheim is not suggesting just discouraging such activity – he says it should be “banned.” The key word there is ‘retired’.  Exactly how this would restore public support is unclear.  It seems to some of us that not saddling active-duty military folks with unworkable plans designed by civilians might be a better idea. Retired Navy 4-star (and Cipher Brief Expert) Admiral Jim Stavridis poked a little fun at The Hill piece tweeting: “Good thing George Washington, U.S. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower snuck in under the wire before such rules went into effect. Exclude retired military & you can rely on true leadership experts like former TV show hosts and electric car czars.”

UNRELIABLE SOURCES:  Fox News host Tucker Carlson appeared on a podcast hosted by former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard this week, regaling her with a story about how he tried to book Vladimir Putin on his TV show as a guest once and that got a lot of people spun up.  Carlson says he had an angry exchange with Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX) who allegedly suggested Tucker was a Russian agent. When pressed why he would say such a thing, McCaul allegedly attributed this to his intelligence briefers. Carlson said he replied, “That’s what the intel briefers told you? You believe your f#%ing intel briefers? Like, how old are you, son? … You’re being manipulated by your intel briefers, duh!” At issue, apparently, is that the U.S. intelligence community learned of the booking effort and Carlson therefore believes he was the target of spying.  Another possibility is that the Russians on the other end of Carlson’s communications might have been of legitimate interest to the IC.