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Chuck Hagel
Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 8:28 am
by kalm
Republicans...wtf?
I've always thought Hagel to be a good dude. Rational, reasonable, consistent. But no room for bipartisanship anymore. And I love how the end timer neo-con christians get their panties in a twist over not being recognized for their interests in getting all the jews together in Israel for the Armageddon slaughter. Oops!
Man we need to get these fundies out of government.
You can argue in favor of Chuck Hagel for this role: a bipartisan pick, combat-veteran cred, cautious realist-centrist record over the years. Or you can argue that someone else would be better: perhaps Democrats should promote their own Democratic national-security team; others have worked more closely with Obama; maybe Hagel's worldview has grown more dovish than Obama's, and so on. That's all fine.
What is poisonous, and should be resisted, is the effort to rule out Hagel through the bogus charge that he is anti-Israel or, worse, anti-Semitic. This campaign is charmingly being led by William Kristol (also here) and others at Kristol's Standard, with predictable backup from the WSJ op-ed page, the WaPo's right-wing blogger, and its often-neocon main editorial page. Incredibly, this is part of the Post's ed page case against Hagel: " 'The Defense Department, I think in many ways, has been bloated,' [Hagel has said]. 'So I think the Pentagon needs to be pared down.' " It's amazing that the paper offers the quote as if it discredited Hagel. In fact it is an argument in his favor, and it echoes what, for instance, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen has said about a military budget that is twice as high as it was ten years ago.
But the nastiest comments have been about Hagel's views on Israel. The WSJ delicately puts the point this way, under the headline "Chuck Hagel's Jewish Problem": Prejudice--like cooking, wine-tasting and other consummations--has an olfactory element. When Chuck Hagel, the former GOP senator from Nebraska who is now a front-runner to be the next secretary of Defense, carries on about how "the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here," the odor is especially ripe."
And, just as subtly from Kristol today, "Hagel also has a record of consistent hostility to Israel over the last decade."
There's an olfactory element here all right. It's the stench of trying to remove someone whose policies you dislike with the damning accusation that underneath it all is outright bigotry. One of the big, supposedly damaging bits of evidence against Hagel is his having said to the author of a book on US-Israel relations:
"I'm not an Israeli senator. I'm a United States senator... I support Israel, but my first interest is I take an oath of office to the Constitution of the United States, not to a president, not to a party, not to Israel. If I go run for Senate in Israel, I'll do that."
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... el/266429/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Re: Chuck Hagel
Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 9:27 am
by Pwns
Good for him. AIPAC has gotten way too powerful for a lobbying group that basically advocates on behalf of a foreign power. Whether or not the US should take any actions against Iran should be decided based on whether or not it's in the best interest of the US, period.
Re: Chuck Hagel
Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 9:48 am
by Grizalltheway
Pwns wrote:Good for him. AIPAC has gotten way too powerful for a lobbying group that basically advocates on behalf of a foreign power. Whether or not the US should take any actions against Iran should be decided based on whether or not it's in the best interest of the US, period.
Re: Chuck Hagel
Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 10:58 am
by HI54UNI
Do some reading on Chuck Hagel. A big concern is that he couldn't handle the pentagon. He couldn't even keep senate staff because he is such an ass.
If he does become secdef don't ever stand between him and a tv camera.
Re: Chuck Hagel
Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 11:11 am
by TwinTownBisonFan
The GOP has gone full-loony. They were tottering before Nov. 6... getting their ass handed to them in the election has sent them in to a blind fury. If Obama put forward a resolution saying "Winning WWII was good" - they'd rally against it screaming that it must be some kind of socialist plot. Their fringe is so completely unhinged and beyond rational thought at this point that the only thing they seem to be able to do is reflexively scream and oppose everything.
Hagel will be confirmed I suspect with solid support - but the GOP will not waste this opportunity to show America how completely over the edge they've gone.
Re: Chuck Hagel
Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 12:27 pm
by Ivytalk
I have no problem with Hagel. He may be the best candidate available for that post. Come to think of it, Cabinet secretaries should be filled by the best candidate available, regardless of party-- recognizing, of course, that a huge majority will come from the President's own party.
I do have a bit of a problem with "tokenism": putting a Republican in a Dem administration, or vice versa, just for the sake of doing it. Years down the road, who will remember mediocre crossovers like Norm Mineta or Ray LaHood? And did you know that Robert McNamara was a registered Republican at one point?
Re: Chuck Hagel
Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 12:34 pm
by AZGrizFan
TwinTownBisonFan wrote:The GOP has gone full-loony. They were tottering before Nov. 6... getting their ass handed to them in the election has sent them in to a blind fury. If Obama put forward a resolution saying "Winning WWII was good" - they'd rally against it screaming that it must be some kind of socialist plot. Their fringe is so completely unhinged and beyond rational thought at this point that the only thing they seem to be able to do is reflexively scream and oppose everything.
Hagel will be confirmed I suspect with solid support - but the GOP will not waste this opportunity to show America how completely over the edge they've gone.
Re: Chuck Hagel
Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 12:42 pm
by Ivytalk
AZGrizFan wrote:TwinTownBisonFan wrote:The GOP has gone full-loony. They were tottering before Nov. 6... getting their ass handed to them in the election has sent them in to a blind fury. If Obama put forward a resolution saying "Winning WWII was good" - they'd rally against it screaming that it must be some kind of socialist plot. Their fringe is so completely unhinged and beyond rational thought at this point that the only thing they seem to be able to do is reflexively scream and oppose everything.
Hagel will be confirmed I suspect with solid support - but the GOP will not waste this opportunity to show America how completely over the edge they've gone.
Yup, that well known bipartisan political sage, TTBF, is back.
Re: Chuck Hagel
Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2012 11:17 am
by UNI88
Ivytalk wrote:AZGrizFan wrote:
Yup, that well known bipartisan political sage, TTBF, is back.
I actually have to agree that the GOP's fringe is pretty close to coming "unhinged." I've long since grown tired of the chicken little the sky is falling crap because Obama won. Of course the Democrat fringe would have been doing the same thing had Romney won.
I do take issue with the "getting their ass handed to them in the election" comment. It might have been an electoral landslide but 4% or whatever it was is no ass handing. Look at Michigan where Obama won handily, they shot down an radically pro-labor referendum and retained a Republican governor and legislature who promptly passed a right to work law in response.
The voters picked Obama as the lesser of 2 evils not because they agreed with his policies and plans. If the Dems think they have a mandate push a one-sided agenda they might be setting themselves up for a kick in the balls in 2014. People want a pragmatic, reasonable compromise.