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Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Schmoozing in among his peers. The Hegseth of the United States, attracted to Alabama. To hit the podium and share a few kindred thoughts. Roy Moore might even attend. Jeff Sessions. But Hegseth is a man of many visits. Few ideas, many visits.

This link. And here, raising cash for the cause.

Hegseth is who he is. He will lay it on with a trowel. Pawlenty next, for the cause?

A second junket, JP reports:

When Pete Hegseth goes on air, he knows there’s a good chance the president of the United States might be watching. And Hegseth, a weekend anchor on President Donald Trump’s favorite TV show, Fox & Friends, is happy to hear it.

“We’re conscious of it and we’re proud of it,” Hegseth said in an interview at The Jerusalem Post’s offices on Monday, during his third trip to Israel. “We’d rather have him watching us than CNN.”

He added: “Obviously you’re conscious of the fact that the man sitting in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue might be watching, but you don’t do the show just in case he’s watching. It does add another level of responsibility to make sure you’re at your best.”

Yeah, Pete. However the man at 1600 Pennsylvania might be otherwise occupied. He loves you Pete, but the story so far is he only gropes women.

Did I say, with a trowel?

There's more:

“Every trip reveals more layers but also deepens my connection to the people and the country of Israel,” he said. “As a person of faith myself, as a Christian, who believes that Jerusalem is the eternal and undivided capital of Israel... the better grasp I can have of all the aspects of what goes on in Jerusalem and in Israel, the better I can bring a true and clearer picture which is often very muddied in the American media.”

And there’s no doubt that Hegseth’s trips to the region have exposed him to more of Israel than the average American. But there is also no doubt that he is seeing a very specific view of the country. In addition to visiting the Western Wall, Hegseth visited Jewish families living in the Muslim Quarter in the capital’s Old City, made a trip to the Orthodox West Bank settlement Beit El and visited the Achva halva factory in Ariel. He also took part in a conference in Jerusalem sponsored by right-wing news outlet Arutz Sheva, where the keynote speakers were Education Minister Naftali Bennett, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan, all from Bayit Yehudi.

The man has a sixth sense - a psycho-compass always pointing to the right, for finding right-wingers with whom to hob-nob. Even if he cannot speak Hebrew, he finds them or they find him. With a little luck Minnesota's loss might be Alabama's gain.