How stupid is Chuck Hagel? Pretty stupid, I’d say – stupid enough to have bought the Iraq War for Oil canard, apparently. From the Weekly Standard:
In a post yesterday waxing enthusiastic about Chuck Hagel as defense secretary, Michael Moore called attention to a statement of Hagel that I don’t believe had been previously much noted. Here it is, from September 2007:
“People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are,” said the Republican Senator from Nebraska Chuck Hagel to law students of Catholic University last September. “They talk about America’s national interest. What the hell do you think they’re talking about? We’re not there for figs.”
He also makes bigoted statements about gays and Jews – just the guy for Secretary of Defense.
PREDICTION: With Kerry at State and Hagel at Defense, Obama will be far more dangerous (and free to do what he wants) in the foreign policy area than the economy.
At this point, they can’t be stopped by constitutional means. Hoping for that miracle is a waste of time.
Lets see, what would the Founding Fathers have done in such a situation?
Oh wait, they were is just such a situation. The main difference was that the King of England wasn’t insane. Oh wait.
Compared to Joe Biden this man is a genius
For Americans there are many reasons to oppose Chuck Hagel.
Hagel has no natural constituency, except perhaps for those who want a foreign and defense policy that is tougher on Israel and softer on Iran.
Israel would be clear that Obama views the Jewish state with hostility. Iran would be clear that it has nothing serious to fear from the Obama administration.
Nothing else can explain this odd nomination. Team Obama tried to couch it as a bipartisan act, inasmuch as Hagel was a Republican Senator. But key Republican Senators have made it clear that they don’t want Hagel at the Pentagon. Key Democrats have also failed to express enthusiasm over that prospect. Even Barney Frank opposes Hagel. If there’s a bipartisan consensus around Hagel, it’s that Obama should nominate someone else.
If the President would like to abandon his election promises about stopping Iran’s nuclear weapons program he should just say so.
Trying to change it by just appointing Hagel will be understood well in the Senate and will.
not be accepted.
The loss of the confirmation will seriously weaken the President.
To me he is the stereotypical Archie Bunker type bigot. His policies have been anti gay (even now after his late and self serving apology he doesn’t support equal benefits for gay military families.
there are many ways a Secretary of Defense could help gay military families no matter how DOMA is decided and Hagel has not come out in favor of any of these.
Reports to the contrary, LGBT equality is not yet a done deal in the military. There is still the matter of partner benefits. There still remain a handful of regulations that could be revised independent of the Defense of Marriage act that could bring some equity of compensation and benefits to gay and lesbian service members. but remain denied due only to Department of Defense foot-dragging:
Included in the discretionary benefits currently denied are spousal identication cards, and shopping at the PX, the former cited in the Pentagon’s own Working Group study as not requiring DOMA repeal to deliver.
His remarks about the Jewish lobby having too much influence would cleary be seen as bigoted if you substitute any other.
minority group’s lobby. Try NAACP or La Raza and see how long you would be considered.
He is anti-African American (with a 11/100 rating from NAACP and admires Strom Thurmond as a great role model. anti Woman (vs choice and contraception).
and
Hagel has drawn additional heat from insiders who claim he lacks the credentials needed to manage a department as large and essential as the Pentagon.
“Yes, Hagel has crazy positions on several key issues. Yes, Hagel has said things that are borderline anti-Semitism. Yes, Hagel wants to gut the Pentagon’s budget. But above all, he’s not a nice person and he’s bad to his staff,” said a senior Republican Senate aide who has close ties to former Hagel staffers.
“Hagel was known for turning over staff every few weeks—within a year’s time he could have an entirely new office because nobody wanted to work for him,” said the source. “You have to wonder how a man who couldn’t run a Senate office is going to be able to run an entire bureaucracy.”.
Others familiar with Hagel’s 12 year tenure in the Senate said he routinely intimidated staff and experienced frequent turnover.
“Chuck Hagel may have been collegial to his Senate colleagues but he was the Cornhusker wears Prada to his staff, some of whom describe their former boss as perhaps the most paranoid and abusive in the Senate, one who would rifle through staffers desks and berate them for imagined disloyalty,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq. “He might get away with that when it comes to staffers in their 20s, but that sort of personality is going to go over like a ton of bricks at the Pentagon.”.
Multiple sources corroborated this view of Hagel.
“As a manager, he was angry, accusatory, petulant,” said one source familiar with his work on Capitol Hill. “He couldn’t keep his staff.”.
“I remember him accusing one of his staffers of being ‘f—ing stupid’ to his face,” recalled the source who added that Hagel typically surrounded himself with those “who basically hate Republicans.”.
Sources expressed concern about such behavior should Hagel be nominated for the defense post. With competing military and civilian interests vying for supremacy, the department requires a skilled manager, sources said.
“The Pentagon requires strong civilian control,” a senior aide to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told the Free Beacon. “It’s already swung back in favor of the military over the past five years. A new secretary of defense should push it back in its rightful place, but it’s doubtful Hagel would be that guy.”.
“It’s not clear that [Hagel] has the standing, the managerial prowess, or the willingness to gore some oxen,” said the source.
One senior Bush administration official warned that Hagel is ill informed about many critical foreign policy matters.
“He’s not someone who’s shown a lot of expertise on these issues,” said the source, referencing a recent Washington Post editorial excoriating Hagel’s record. “That [op-ed] was extraordinary.”.
“Only in Washington,” the official added, “can someone like [Hagel] be seen as a heavy weight. He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”.
Hagel is likely viewed positively by the administration mainly because he is a Republican who often criticizes his own party, the source said.
“He’ll dance to a tune played by the White House,” said the former official. “That I think is the real problem.”.
As lawmakers consider a deal to avoid sweeping budgets cuts and tax hikes, Hagel’s support for slashing spending at the Pentagon has irked many defense hawks.
“This is a time when a secretary of defense needs to be raising hell about the sequestration cuts,” said the Rumsfeld aide. “It’s not clear that Hagel has any interest in picking that fight.”.
Hagel’s reluctance to chastise Iran also remains a central concern.
As chief of the Pentagon it is expected he would avoid planning for a military intervention should Tehran refuse to end its clandestine nuclear enrichment program.
“The military brass is already reluctant to offer up any military options on Iran even though it’s their job to have something on the books and to leave the options of the commander in chief open,” said the Rumsfeld aide. “Hagel will only reinforce these worrisome tendencies.”.
“Chances are he’ll view any legitimate effort to talk about military options with Iran as some plot by the ‘Israel Lobby’ to box him in,” the source said.
There is no reason to believe his appointment would change Israeli policies.
But there is a very strong likelihood that it would be a fatal blow to the chances of a negotiated settlement with Iran.
Iran would have to conclude that it doesn’t have to fear.
finishing it’s nuclear weapons program or even continuing towards ICBM’s pointing at America.
It is not at all about preferring negotiations with Iran over war, or about Israel showing reasonable flexibility in negotiations. Those are mainstream reasonable ideas that almost everyone supports.
Hagel’s ideas are not these ideas and are not mainstream in any way.
That is why the senators are very likely to say no if Hagel comes up for.
confirmation.
President Obama should avoid the risk of loosing a confirmation vote over someone who’s views on many major issues are opposite of the President’s stated views and instead appoint the better person Michelle Flornoy.
Flournoy closely mirrors the previous stated policies of the President, the Democratic Party, and the American people.