Hagel for Defense Secretary

I’m actually agnostic on this choice.  The always excellent Charles Pierce makes a good case for Hagel, but why should Obama go for any Republican?  This just continues to promote the canard that Republicans are somehow stronger or more capable on defense issues than Democrats.

The irony here is that the greatest opposition is coming from Republicans, some of whom have gone so far as to call him an anti-Semite*  because he has spoken openly and honestly about the excessive influence the pro-Israel lobby has on American foreign policy.   When we consider the pros and cons of any individual for any position, we ought to do it on the basis of real qualifications and real disqualifications, not make-believe nonsense put forward by neocons and the cadre of rabid right-wingers whose policies have done such great and possibly irreparable damage to the world in this century.
 
I rarely agree with Mish on anything political, and to find myself agreeing in principle with him when he’s agreeing in principle with Patrick Buchanan has my stomach turning and my head spinning. 

Vertigo, nausea and angular momentum aside, this appointment is the president’s decision, and I want to see the debate procede along substantive rather than ideological, illogical or untruthful  lines.   And I most particularly don’t want to see him get Riced.

Now, where do I pick up my pony?

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* On 1/07 I heard Eliot Abrams do exactly that in an NPR interview.  Abrams was an Iran-Contra cohort of Paul Wolfowitz and Oliver North.