The New York Times, August 19:
See that claim clearly: Never before has the wife of a Pentagon leader had a high profile and hands-on role. It’s shocking and unprecedented. The wives of senior leaders in the armed forces usually don’t go anywhere near any military events, you see. Chasing that theme, the opening paragraphs warn that Jennifer Hegseth is even attending official events and meeting servicemembers. “There has never been a Pentagon spouse quite like Jennifer Hegseth,” the first sentence says.
Spoiler alert: There absolutely has. It’s normal behavior, and the wives of many SecDefs have had a significant public role: Stephanie Carter, Leah Esper, Joyce Rumsfeld. This story is illustrated with a photograph of Stephanie Carter meeting with troops while her husband, Ash Carter, served as Secretary of Defense in the Obama administration.
But one example is especially important. Read the second paragraph of the Times story on Jennifer Hegseth closely, because there’s language in here that you’re going to see again:
In May she was in camouflage shorts and a sweat-drenched T-shirt that said “This Is War” working out with sailors, Marines and her husband, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, on the deck of the U.S.S. Boxer in Singapore. In June she and six of the couple’s seven children accompanied Mr. Hegseth to the D-Day commemoration in Normandy, where a Defense Department promotional video with a swelling, cinematic soundtrack captured husband and wife walking arm in arm on Omaha Beach. The imagery seemed to cast her as the first lady of the Pentagon.
She has such a shockingly high public profile that she seems to be acting like the first lady of the Pentagon, which is unprecedented.
Now, try this for yourself: Google the name of Janet Langhart-Cohen, the wife of the former Clinton-era Secretary of Defense William Cohen, and see how many search results proudly describe her as “the first lady of the Pentagon.”
In 2022, Bowdoin College made a show of only granting honorary degrees to women. The top honoree who got an honorary degree that year was…
Guess why everybody called her that. If you want to read a news story from 1999 about Janet Langhart-Cohen taking an extremely active role in the Department of Defense, you can read that story in a publication called … The New York Times. In 1999, the Times celebrated Langhart-Cohen’s active public role in the armed forces:
It is William S. Cohen, the current Secretary of Defense, who shares the front of Parade magazine with his wife, Janet Langhart Cohen, under the headline, ”Two For America.”
That portrait is not just another example of Mr. Cohen’s famous sentimentality. (True, the former Republican Senator, who married three years ago on Valentine’s Day, has written, among other things, an ode to the F-15 fighter jet.) The headline is an apt description of a rare public relations campaign by the husband-wife Cohen team. With public appearances, musical events and Mrs. Cohen’s new weekly television show broadcast to armed forces bases around the globe, the Cohens are on a mission to bridge the gap between the civilian and military cultures.
Mrs. Cohen has undertaken a role that is almost unheard for a Cabinet spouse, even one known as the First Lady of the Pentagon.
Does anyone at The New York Times read The New York Times?
But beyond that, is there anyone left at The New York Times who knows anything, or remembers anything, or has a basic foundation of knowledge that would allow them to test claims about unprecedented behaviors?
Failing that, is there an editor in the building who knows how to use Google?
On this week’s evidence, apparently not.
