President Barack Obama’s nomination of former Republican senator Chuck Hagel as defense secretary forced the GOP to choose between the past—especially a discredited president who blundered disastrously in Iraq—and the future, represented by a Republican who felt more loyalty to his country than his party. Unfortunately, the GOP chose the past.
Ironically, a group of Republicans wrote the president urging him to withdraw the nomination, contending that Hagel’s lackluster performance at his confirmation hearing raised “serious doubts about his basic competence to meet the substantial demands of the office.” Yet it is his critics who failed to demonstrate even a basic interest in military policy and to justify the trust placed in them by voters.
For instance, the hearings on Hagel’s nomination amounted to a poor imitation of Kabuki Theater, with Republicans more interested in scoring cheap political points than in discussing substantive issues. While GOP members complained that Hagel was ill-prepared for the challenges facing the Pentagon, they failed to ask him serious questions about serious issues—coping with budget cuts, simultaneously engaging and constraining China, dealing with a fading NATO.
That’s too bad, because Hagel probably had answers. Far better answers than would come from the GOP’s permanent war caucus. In fact, Republican senators like Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are traditional tax, borrow, and spend liberals when it comes to the military: bigger and more expensive is always better. They have no idea how to cope with the coming end of Washington’s wild debt party.
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