The puzzle of the Chuck Hagel nomination for defense secretary is that you normally choose someone of the other party for your Cabinet to indicate a move to the center, but, as The Post’s editorial board pointed out, Hagel’s foreign policy views are to the left of Barack Obama’s, let alone the GOP’s. Indeed, they are at the fringe of the entire Senate.
So what’s going on? Message-sending. Obama won reelection. He no longer has to trim, to appear more moderate than his true instincts. He has the “flexibility” to be authentically Obama.
Hence the Hagel choice: Under the guise of centrist bipartisanship, it allows the president to leave the constrained first-term Obama behind and follow his natural Hagel-like foreign policy inclinations. On three pressing issues, in particular:
(1) Military Spending
Current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in August 2011 that the scheduled automatic $600 billion defense cuts (”sequestration”) would result in “hollowing out the force,” which would be “devastating.” And he strongly hinted that he might resign rather than enact them.
Asked about Panetta’s remarks, Hagel called the Pentagon “bloated” and needing “to be pared down.” Just the man you’d want to carry out a U.S. disarmament that will shrink America to what Obama thinks is its proper size on the world stage; i.e., smaller. The overweening superpower that Obama promiscuously chided in his global we-have-sinned tour is poised for reduction, not only to fund the bulging welfare state — like Europe’s postwar choice of social spending over international relevance — but to recalibrate America’s proper role in the world.
Read More at the Washington Post . By Charles Krauthammer.
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Who really cares who this bum is
He is just another bum that obama pick to do his dirty work, anyone that obama picks, watchout!! he must be dirty. Just the fact that he feels our military is bloated and wants to cut our defense and have our country defenseless is not acceptable and he does not support nor cares about Isreal is enough for me. This man is bad news like obama. No wonder this country is in a mess, look at all the incompetence people running this country.