President Barack Obama is expected to nominated former Sen. Chuck Hagel to become the next US Defense Secretary. Hagel is a decorated military veteran, but he comes to the nomination with little if any of the typical support coalition that major nominees enjoy. His nomination manages to offend a wide range of people across the political and national security spectrum.
- Hagel opposed the surge that led to victory in Iraq, calling it “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam.” The surge worked, but Hagel’s opposition to it helped him cement relationships with two others who opposed it: Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Joe Biden. Opposing the surge calls Hagel’s military judgement into question.
- Hagel’s views on Israel will be problematic. He has urged Israel to engage in direct talks with Hamas, and he has accused the “Jewish lobby” of “intimidating” officials in Washington.
- At the same time, Hagel has tended to be soft on Iran, voting against sanctions and urging direct talks between the US and the Islamic state’s mullahcracy.
- At the same time, Hagel has run into trouble on the left for a past statement on James Hormel, who Hagel called “aggressively gay” when Hormel was nominated to be US ambassador to Luxembourg.
- These positions will stir up comment and opposition from a range of players, from Abraham Foxman to the Human Rights Campaign.
If Obama thinks nominating this particular Republican will stir up a bipartisan coalition supporting it, he may be nuts. The fight over Hagel’s nomination may cost Obama as many as 10 Democratic senators, along with vocal opposition from several Republican senators likely including Cruz and Cornyn of Texas, Graham of South Carolina, McCain of Arizona and several others. The nomination seems doomed. Why Hagel? What does he bring to our national defense that some other nominee does not, but without the baggage that Hagel brings? Why pick the fight? Is this nomination another of Obama’s “I won” moments?
On spending, Barack Obama seems not only to have no intention of cutting back on what his government spends, he apparently does not even believe that there is a problem at all. The Wall Street Journal reports that House Speaker John Boehner had the president drop a sanity-defying line on him during the recent standoff:
“At one point several weeks ago,” Mr. Boehner says, “the president said to me, ‘We don’t have a spending problem.’ “
Suppose that Barack Obama actually believes this. Why say it to the man he was negotiating with, who clearly believes that we do have a spending problem. Boehner has said so publicly several times. Just from a negotiating point of view, Obama’s statement makes little sense. Then, there are the facts. The United States is currently running annual deficits north of $1 trillion per year. We are more than $16 trillion in debt, and on track to be over $22 trillion and maybe $26 trillion in debt by the time Obama leaves office. Entitlement spending is on pace to devour America whole if it is not reined in. How can any sane person not believe that we have a spending problem? Our government has not even had a real budget in over three years. Obama reportedly wants to hit our struggling economy with even more taxes, which would make him easily the most aggressive tax hiker in American history. Such a push is likely to drive major donors away from the Democratic party, and may split Democrats in the House and Senate, while driving unemployment and misery even higher.
And then, there’s gun control. Obama is now clearly exploiting the Newtown, CT tragedy to build pressure in favor of new gun control legislation. There is virtually no chance of such legislation passing through the House if it does anything more than update and upgrade the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The Senate looks unlikely to pass anything substantive too — one of his own Democrats is calling Obama’s position on gun control “extreme.” As I’ve reported, all the talk of new gun control laws is doing is driving up gun sales and gun range activity. Does Obama not see that any new national gun laws will run into strong opposition while driving up demand for the very thing he wants to curb if not do away with? Does he not realizing that the main thing he is achieving is convincing millions of Americans to arm themselves?
A SecDef with no real constituency on the left or the right, an inattention to our spending problem that can fairly be called delusional, and a position on gun control that is helping create historic sales of firearms: Obama’s recent choices seem to be not just counterproductive, but intentionally provocative to the point of being insane.
It’s obvious what Obama’s trying to do. Offering up a sacrificial Republican that is so undesirable that even other Rs will reject him, allowing Obama to say “These Republicans are so intransigent, so unhinged in their dislike FOR ME that they even reject one of their own! I tried to extend the Olive Branch, and look what happened! We must move forward without Republicans if they refuse to come to the table and work with ME!”
Exactly.
– like a fox? Obama will appease Bibi and his American friends by releasing Pollard so long as they don’t oppose him on Hagel. Hagel’s confirmation will allow Obama to continue to pursue talks with Iran and its plan for the region.
So the deal is a sickly aging spy who was jailed decades ago and in return Iran gets nuclear weapons pointed at Tel Aviv. “Bibi and his American friends” may be lots of things my friend but suicidal and stupid are not among them.
Actually Israelis are staying out of this because it is a decision to be made by the elected American government. Meddling in such things tends to backfire and that is one mistake Bibi has made before.
Bibi mentions Pollard every year but he is no big cause among Jews or Israelis. He knows he will get turned down. He does it as all Israeli PMs because of a sense of duty. Israelis know that the operation was a huge embarrasing mistake and should never have happened. Nonetheless he was their spy and trusted them so they at least make the request every year. It is really a formality.
With K’ here. The administration knows what it is doing. Either:
1. It’s another chance to demonize the GOP Congress since they are going against “one of their own” who dares do what is best for the country (i.e. supporting Obama).
2. It’s another “In Your Face” event where Obama is going to ram this through just to demoralize the Republican’s in the Senate (and House) by making the most controversial pick he can.
3. Hagel is a sacrificial lamb – meant to soak up the ire so a somewhat less radical pick will be called “a good moderate choice” by the press after that. Any resistance to the second pick will be met with negative press (See 1).
Aside from obviously sending a message to the Muslim world, obama intends to use this to brag about his bipartisanship. It’s even better if Hagel is rejected by the Senate, because then he will crow about how the republicans / Congress thwart him at every turn.
Regarding the “we don’t have a spending problem” comment. He might actually believe it. Many liberal idiots do believe it. But it’s far more likely he was just yanking Boehner’s chain. The guy is about 13 years old mentally.
You’re reacting as if it matters to him what he does. He was elected. He has the votes. The media is covering for him, whether through fear or collusion. He can do whatever he wants to. Who’s going to stop him? He’s been wrecking the country four straight years and hasn’t had a serious challenge. His party even increased its margin in the Senate. So stop the hand wringing and come up with some ideas.
isn’t there something in the constitution about insanity being a valid condition for impeachment or removal from office? Maybe we can build on that. Remember “Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte”?, maybe we can start doing stuff to drive the O over the edge…??
“maybe we can start doing stuff to drive the O over the edge…??”
How would we tell?
Obama’s entire style, starting with his name, is IN YOUR FACE.
I’m not sure he has any real interest or understanding of anything else on the planet, besides doing as much of that as he can.
Until and unless the Republicans figure out a response to that, I just dunno.
“Until and unless the Republicans figure out a response to that, I just dunno.”
The response is two-fold: when you can, you get in his face and you thwart him at every turn. He’s basically the Hahvud Law version of a Meany School trained union rep or an Alinsky disciple community organizer and his tactics are all offensive, designed to provoke. If you don’t allow yourself to be provoked, he will do ever more provocative stuff trying to provoke you, becoming more and more radical and shedding support as he escalates. When he does something stupid enough, you get in his face, call him on it, or if you have the power, punish him for it.
He’s a typical trained and disciplined lefty as opposed to the limousine liberal or faculty lounge communist types that Republicans have more experience with. The trained and disciplined leftist is dangerous but very one-dimensional and usually totally lacking in self-awareness. They are so confident of their superiority that they never really prepare for things. Their superior enlightenment makes them able to predict what mere mortals will do in response to their actions, so they script everything based on their assumptions of what their inferior adversary will do. If you don’t do what they expected you to do, they have no Plan B. I’ve literally had union reps show up at hearings with their cross-exam questions written out and their closing argument already written; they’re that arrogant. (I’m not saying you don’t prepare for cross and close; you have to but the most you can realistically do is sketch out the broad strokes and bright colors.) I’ve had lots of fun off union witnesses not adequately prepared. The essential predicate of all things Alinsky is that the honky dog adversary is stupid; you can work with that.
The real problem the Congressional Republicans have is that the Red States are really Red and they never see or have to deal with serious leftwing activists. Until the ’10 election caused the earth to shift in WI, MI, OH, and IN, CA and AK had been the only union states with a Republican governor. True lefty activists are creatures of the Blue places and the only place you’ll ever see them in a Red state is the capital city and college towns. Other than a handful of Purple states, the US is more segregated politically than a small Southern town was segregated racially in the ’50s.
For four straight elections, Americans have gone with the Alinskyites.
Obama knows full well what he is doing. Democrats won’t go against him. They haven’t yet. A spending problem? Watch them accuse Republicans of ‘endangering the full faith and credit of the US’ when it comes time to raise the debt ceiling.
Hagel is a member of the club. A number of senators might oppose him but a majority? Of Democrats? That would mean opposing their dear leader.
The GOP is weaker now than it was six months ago. Any GOP opposition will be seen as sour grapes.
Obama might very well be crazy but we gave him the keys to the White House for more years. People ignored the truth about Obama for the last six years. It was known before election day 2008 that Obama was the most far left member of the Senate. People didn’t care. They wanted to make history. Now they can watch the real Obama at work. See what this country is like in 2016, provided we last that long.
will kiss and hug obama for his hagel nomination
“pro-israel” j-street rabbis will cheer for hagel
because, you see, uppity Israel needs “tough love”
iran knows it can keep making that bomb now . . .
Iran knew it could keep making the bomb when Obama sat silent with his thumbs up his ass during the Iranian “Green Revolution.”
He’s wanted a nuclear Iran from the beginning.