Pete Hacks, F. Me, and meeting with important Jews. May 26, 2025. Introduction. So we are in the

middle of a flurry of news stories about our doings here in Moscow. For example, Vox just dropped a story on empathy about our own Joe Rigney, managing the

process to drop it on their foot. There was also NPR, and the New Yorker, and the Guardian,

and New York Magazine. Empathy must really be somebody's sibilant preciouses. And then last Friday,

Politico did a big profile background piece on me, which you can read here.

Don't leave out the Talking Points memo, which broke the story that I had met with, Pete Hexeth.

That phrasing, met with, was picked up by right-wing watch, as you can see off to the right,

and which you can read about shortly after you are done shortling to yourself.

There are no doubt other outlets that are also working on stories, I know of at least one

significant one, and we will see how they all go.

Once they are all out, and depending on the average quality of the stories, we might need

to call them a slurry of new stories.

So, before getting to some of my more pointed observations, allow me to explain to you

how I got my tentacles into the Pentagon.

Meeting with Pete Heggseth. So let me tell you about all this. Let me tell you how it all happened.

And keep an eye on that pesky little word, with. I first became aware of Pete Hegeseth when he

authored a book together with my friend David Goodwin of ACCS. The book was the battle for the American

Mind and it bounced along the top of the NYT bestseller list for some weeks. It is a great book

and you should go and get it. It was all about America's departure from the older forms of education

and about the movement in education to restore a classical and Christian approach. Since this is

something I've been involved with for a number

of decades now, as in up to my neck, I followed this publishing development with great interest.

...