This is Power Politics
Hegseth renames a ship.
Not only is this a waste of money and time, but it is absolutely acting politically in regards to naming Navy vessels.
It is, in fact, naked politics and made even more political by claiming its not. It is also very much the politics of “us versus them,” wherein the Trump administration seeks to exclude rather than include.
This all fits into the re-renaming of military bases. All of this is 1) an exercise of power (we are in charge now!), and 2) asserting that the names they want are the good, normal, and acceptable ones while names deployed by other political actors are problematic, inappropriate, or “virtue signalling” (because, heaven forbid, virtues should be signalled by doing something like taking a Confederate’s name off a military base or honoring a Gay right’s activist! I mean, what are you trying to signal?).
I wrote about this previously: It’s Always Been About the Bigotry.
Wouldn’t surprise me to find out there was a private Oscar V. Peterson in Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, and Whiskey Pete has pulled another fast one.
I agree with you. But at least it’s not the USNS John Wayne or something. I actually had to go look up Oscar V. Peterson. Unless there’s a deeper story, he seems like a pretty low key hero. So there’s at least that.
It may be Power Politics but it’s being played by very weak men.
FDR and Churchill stopped the Nazi’s and never had to do pushups to prove what kind of men they were.
The cruelty is the point part the infinity.
@Daryl: In retrospect, not the best title choice on my part.
We should name a ship for Oscar E. Peterson, one of the greatest pianists ever. Even if he was a Canadian. We should have a class of ships named for great jazz performers. Imagine how proud you’d be to serve on the USS Dizzy Gillespie.
I still think the easiest solution would be stop naming ships after people
Apart from monarchs and admirals or (very few) generals (sucessful ones; poor old Byng or Graves are unlikely to ever get a namecheck) the Royal Navy has never done so.
But does have some, umm, interesting choices in its history.
HMS’s Spanker, Fairy, Pansy, Cockchafer, Truant , Tickler , Wallflower, Inconstant, and Surly, for instance.
God preserve the Royal Navy!
@Joe: The only Oscar Peterson I know of was a great jazz pianist. But I don’t think they should name a ship after him.
@JohnSF: I agree. But that ship has sailed.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I see what you did there. 🙂
@Slugger:
The USS Gene Krupa?
“We bring the noise!”
@Daryl:
Though iirc Abraham Lincoln sometimes demonstrated his phyical strength, in an offhand way.
I also have sneaking suspicion that either FDR or Churchill, in their younger days, could have slapped Hegseth upside the head.
You don’t, in the case of Churchill, get to be a Queen’s Own Hussars lieutenant without a certain capacity for violence.
Also, Winston could have pretty certainly have drunk Hegseth under the table, and still fought a war.
😉
Navy guy here, and tradition, renaming ships risks the ire of Neptune. unless you capture them and make them your own. Talk about bad juju. But Drunkbreath is a soldier, not a sailor, so he has no clue.
@JohnSF: I quite agree. In the past, U.S. capital ships were named for states (Battleships until 1944), battles or historic naval vessels (aircraft carriers, 1922-1955). Nowadays Trident subs are the real capital ships and they are named for states. But the trend to name warships after politicians is one we should abandon. I say this despite the fact that a fast attack sub was named after my kinsman Jimmy Carter.