If you had to sit through, or sift through, the Pentagon budget briefings Wednesday, you’d be forgiven for thinking that they might never end.
As a public service, Battleland’s crack team of data analysts has been poring over the five main budget briefings – given by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale, and the Air Force, Army and Navy – to answer a single burning question:
How many words were dedicated to each briefer’s opening statement, complete with PowerPoint slides, compared to time left over for questions from reporters?
The grim results appear in the accompanying chart. The sad fact is that if you had to endure the Army and Navy briefings, two-thirds of them were swallowed up by opening statements.