Joseph Lisle: A diving belle (1818 - 1830)
From the Thomas McLean Collection

" … the last thing they will have to celebrate until their own assassination."

I have been operating out of my Depth for all of my life so far. I once believed—or prayed—that I might one day "grow out of" my innate shallowness, though I no longer hold out much of any hope for that result. I have grown to expect myself to perform pretty much to my specs, which, while sometimes broad rather than narrow and tall rather than short, have always, so far, tended toward the eminently shallow. I'm uncertain how one develops Depth. Experience alone does not necessarily seem to translate into deepening experience, for one can seemingly dabble in any subject without ever truly delving very much deeper.

Many have taken to complaining about the lack of Depth in our incumbent's political appointees. As a class, though, political appointees have never precisely guaranteed much beyond loyalty to the incumbent who appointed them, if that. They tend to be experienced in unrelated fields and frequently commit the unwitting sin of mistaking their present assignment for some former one. These confusions often make for entertainment as a department head attempts to manage the Department of Education as if she were overseeing the World Wide Wrestling Federation's executive operations, for instance. Hapless hardly starts describing the typical political hire, though our present incumbent's administration, dead-set against administering anything, certainly sets a tenaciously higher bar.

Hegseth, the so-called SecDef or Secretary of Deafness, rivals Rumsfeld in his public defensiveness. Rumsfeld, you will remember, began the republification of the Department of Defense with his oversight of our post-9/11 self-inflicted war-making. He was the one who famously reported on what he didn't know he didn't know, perhaps the most perfect portrait of a Secretary out of his Depth. He mistook the Defense Department for a graduate seminar on military history and himself for a learned professor, which he was, much more than an experienced warfighter. That said, credentials have rarely supported a candidate's nomination or confirmation, for both activities come as close to pure partisan as any can, if partisanship can even be said to come in anything resembling a pure form.

So, the difficulty cannot possibly lie in these Secretaries being out of their Depth. I suspect it comes from a second-order cluelessness about this inescapable fact. Their incumbency transforms into parody due to their inability to perceive just how shallow they are. Perhaps the better ones suffer from twangs of impostor syndrome, but the worst seriously attempt to act as though they were comfortably within their range of competences when even the kiddies can see that they ain't. Those who are moved to make public proclamations because their position allows them to do so usually prove to be the lamest, but seriously, few expect any political appointee to perform competently. They are—and have been, for the most part, throughout history—at best, atmosphere characters, on stage purely to frame scenes for their chief executive. The primary reason this current batch seems so lame stems from the extraordinary lameness of their boss.

This batch of cabinet secretaries each chose to make a deal with a devil they couldn't have possibly known. Even those who could trace their so-called relationship—i.e., acquaintance—with the incumbent back generations should have known they were signing on with a character with little character. They should have known their role would be to play contingent cannon fodder, for a time would come when their boss could only appear to save his ass by sacrificing theirs. They would be like caged chickens in the interim, dutifully laying eggs. Their real purpose, though, would not lie in laying eggs but ultimately in making the ultimate sacrifice for their hapless patron. No one will or should ever shed a tear for the fate of any undersecretary, for it was clearly predetermined when they agreed to stand for their confirmation hearing. I swear every one of them should receive a hair shirt and a box for their head as a prize for gaining confirmation. It will be the last thing they will have to celebrate until their own assassination.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #FollowingChapters, #PureSchmaltz