THE RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENSE: The Pentagon often asserts that when American troops come under hostile fire, the U.S military always has the right of self-defense. Yesterday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, a retired one-star Navy admiral, launched a verbal salvo of defensive fire against Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, after Carlson used his prime-time show to call pregnant women in uniform “a mockery of the U.S. military.”

Kirby showed up at an off-camera Pentagon briefing with a prepared statement blasting the host of a popular cable show, which garners upward of four million viewers a night.