http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2013/02/19/msnbcs-cycle-gives-daschle-platform-bash-hagel-filibuster-no-mention-d

My sense (and suspicion) is that Obama’s inner leftism has been yearning to break out and breathe free, in particular when it comes to foreign policy draped with his “goddamn America” desires. Sort of like the way that Obama originally opposed (and feigned disquiet about) same-sex marriage and now just about demands that it be sanctioned, embraced and feted.

If one goes far left enough, and far right enough, the two can find common ground—at least in terms of the Middle East and Israel, and the peculiar ass-backwards nature of a variety of leftists and oddball rightists in the way they perceive the good and bad sides, the good and bad guys.

Hagel for Real Realists

Little Red Writing Chait is of course reasoning from the assumption that President Obama is moderate and wise, that he holds an undying ardor for Israel, and is manifestly determined to prevent a nuclear Iran, come hell or highly enriched uranium. It is not surprising that Chait should find it so trying to incorporate the president’s nomination of Hagel into a web of beliefs founded on such givens.

But as far as old Bill Occam and I are concerned, the most plausible explanation for why President Obama nominated Chuck Hagel is that . . . he wanted to. He thinks Chuck Hagel will be effective in administering the national-security policy of candidate Obama circa 2007 or 2008, and even of President Obama circa 2009. And that’s the policy President Obama is interested in pursuing in his second term. In other words, the reason President Obama’s defense nominee sucks is that President Obama’s defense policy sucks.

…Maybe the best way to illustrate what the far left, far right, and dead center are missing about Hagel is with the following dilemma: Hagel’s foreign-policy views are clearly to the left of the president’s rhetoric for the last couple of years. That’s not even debatable. In practice, that will mean one of two things. Either the views expressed in Obama’s rhetoric of the last couple of years will continue to be the policy of the United States, in which case Hagel will be frustrated and constrained as defense secretary, and relegated to the role of mere bureaucrat-in-chief of the Pentagon. That, needless to say, does not appear to be his strong suit. The other possibility is that a second-term Obama will pursue a foreign policy closer to the one Hagel has avowed in speeches and writings over the last several years: a considerably smaller military, a net reduction in global power projection, especially in the most dangerous parts of the world, generous détente with Iran, skeptical neutrality or even hostility toward Israel, and so on. In that case, Hagel will be free to foolishly pursue his boss’s foolish vision.

Hagel can thus incompetently execute a decent strategy or competently execute an indecent one. So flip a coin. Heads they win, tails we lose.