Four days after Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for "complications" from an "elective medical procedure," the Pentagon notified Congress.

The fact that the Secretary had been hospitalized since New Year's Day was disclosed Friday in a press statement.

Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, declined to elaborate on the source of Mr. Austin’s medical issues, citing patient privacy. But in a statement on Friday, General Ryder said the defense secretary, who is 70, is “recovering well and is expecting to resume his full duties today.”

During Mr. Austin’s time in the hospital, Kathleen Hicks, the deputy defense secretary, “was prepared to act for and exercise the powers of the secretary, if required,” General Ryder said in the statement.

There is no word on what the "elective medical procedure" was, though with DOD's current infatuation with transgenderism, I'm terrified to find out.

I don't believe in indispensable men (except maybe George Washington); if I did, a midwit like Austin wouldn't be among them. There is nothing this guy has touched from the Afghan debacle to our response in the Red Sea that has been a disaster to him hiding under his bed with his blankey at the thought of "extremists" in the military (DOD's 'Military Extremism' Investigation Is a Dud) that hasn't been both sad and ridiculous. 

What is troubling about this is the lack of honesty and duplicity of his actions. When asked why the Pentagon had not informed Congress of Austin's status, the result was pure evasion.

Contacted by The Messenger Friday evening as to why the news of Austin's hospitalization was not disclosed earlier, Ryder attributed the delayed response to an "evolving situation."

"We had to consider a number of factors, including medical and personal privacy issues," said Ryder. "Congressional notifications occurred late this afternoon."

This is crap. If an issue is "evolving" toward the head of DOD spending five days in the hospital, then notification should be early rather than later. There are literally no "medical and personal privacy issues" that prevent Congress from being told that the SecDef is in the hospital. The issue is his fitness for duty (he wasn't), not the detailed reason. He has no more a right to privacy here than a sh**bag private can use a "right to privacy" to prevent punishment for being AWOL.

The danger to democracy in our country does not come from Donald Trump, the January 6 defendants, Christian Nationalists, or even racists and antisemites. It comes from a privileged and pampered military and civil service who think they have no responsibility to anyone but themselves.