I want to thank Dana Milbank for writing his column in defense of Chuck Hagel. I don’t want Chuck Hagel to be our next Secretary of Defense, but that’s not the point. We need people, and particularly Jewish-Americans, to come to the defense of those who support Israel but are sometimes very critical of their policies. I think it is a big mistake for AIPAC or the ADL or neo-conservatives to throw the anti-Semitism label at people who have never shown any anti-Jewish animus. I’ve had right-wing blogs accuse me of anti-Semitism because of criticisms I’ve made of Israel’s policies, and it doesn’t make me more of a supporter of Israel. I shrug that stuff off, but not without a certain degree of irritation and impatience.
Let’s be frank for a moment. It isn’t easy to be a supporter of Israel. It may be easy for those who seek high office in the United States, but that’s about where the comfort zone ends. Israel has been losing legitimacy in the eyes of the world for decades now. It simply isn’t possible to defend their expansion of the settlements, and that makes it harder to defend everything else they do.
In my opinion, as Israel pursues its own self-defense they too often do damage to their own self-interest. I have opposed their policies as much for the harm they do to Israelis as the Palestinians. When people make this argument, they should not be called anti-Semitic. It’s misguided both because it is wrong and unfair, and because it pushes allies away.
If Chuck Hagel isn’t pro-Israel enough to be Secretary of Defense, then a lot of people are going to feel like maybe they don’t feel like being pro-Israel anymore.
Whenevefr I look at our relationship with Israel I am reminded of the commercial that states “friends don’t let friends drive drunk.” Meaning, we can consider Israel our friend and ally and still attempt to keep them from doing stupid and dangerous things and even criticize actions. What a lot of people don’t realize is that there is a difference in not agreeing with someone’s actions and being a hater of that person.
In my previous existence as a relationship counselor I would often be confronterd with the thinking that since one member of the relationsdhip got made at the other or criticized the other, that person must not love the other. That is bogus thinking but it is similar to the thinking of those that view any criticism of Isreal as anti-Semitic.
AIPAC and the ADL will one day suffer the same fate as the NRA. They won’t lose all their power, but some event will severely diminish their influence in a way that smart people could see was probably coming at some point.
A very clear-eyed assessment, Booman.
Now turn your lens on the United States, please. If you were as clear-eyed about the U.S. as you are about Israel, maybe you’d write something like this:
Maybe you’d write something like that.
But you don’t.
There is a programmer’s acronym, Booman. GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage out. I’d like to propose another. A sociological one. WOWI. War Out, War In. the latest evidence? Newtown, CT. Bet on it.
WOWI!!!
A dark, depressing, foreboding cover to be sure. Time nailed it this time. No celebration there.
Hmmmmmmm…
AG
One disagreement, Arthur, Military imperialism, not Economic imperialism. Economically, we are the colony. Japan and China have been competing for our bones. China’s bigger. They’re winning. We might have won against Japan; they are half our size. We have lost against China; they are six times our size.
Only now is the rest of the world beginning to get as concerned about Chinese economic imperialism (in Africa and Latin America, for example) as they have been about US economic imperialism.
And the anger against the US has an undertone of feelings of betrayal because at the end of World War II the US promised something much different. The rest of the world has never seen China with that same sort of hope.
It’s economic imperialism that is militarily enforced, VITW. So why are we broke and in debt? We let thieves take over. We spent too much on our military. We lost our will and purpose beneath layers of self-satisfied fat. In short…we blew it. Like all successful gangster families, we got soft and stupid on our new-found luxury.
But gangsterism is not the only way to go.
Or is it?
We shall see. Soon enough.
AG
Dunno, Arthur. Right now, I’m listening to Bob Seeger on Pandora. There’s an answer there somewhere. Here, I found a youtube link to the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nStpq5QLQv4
Only in my case it’s “Fifty Years, where’d they go? Fifty Years, I don’t know.”
Since when does the SecDef pursue an Independent foreign policy? That is a bogus argument against the man. My main objection is that he is a Republican and his appointment bolsters the argument that Democrats are no good at defense policy. If Hagel would publicly change his registration to Democratic, I would welcome him for no other reason than that flipping a high visibility republican is a coup causing serious damage to the Republican Party.
Appointing Republicans to the highest levels of the Administration sends the message that elections DON’T have consequences. Rewarding high level conversions would send the message that leaving the Republican Party for the Democratic bring rewards. THAT message we want to send.
Appointing Republicans to the highest levels of the Administration sends the message that elections DON’T have consequences.
That is a good rule of thumb, but I’m not sure how much it applies here. We’re talking about someone whose most important action in the relevant sphere of policy (defense) was breaking dramatically with the Republicans over Iraq, and who is sure to take enormous amounts of flak from the Republicans throughout his confirmation. The Republicans themselves are going to do a lot of work to make it clear the Hegel is not one of them, and thus, undermine the “Republic Daddy Effect” that you’re talking about.
Interesting, joe. Would appointing Kerry to defense (instead of State) send the opposite message?
Appointing Kerry to Defense would, indeed, send the message that Obama trusts Democrats with the Defense portfolio, while appointing Hegel would not sent a partisan message one way or the other.
So, I guess you could argue that appointing Hegel would be a missed opportunity to send a good message, even if it doesn’t send a bad message.
Since all of this is rumor and no appointments have been made or even official disclosure of the short lists, President Obama could appoint Kerry or Susan Rice or Lindsay Graham for that matter to Secretary of Defense.
Appointments aren’t messages. They are mostly about qualities beyond policy positions or ideology (although those increasingly are important to having team players). But they get spun politically as messages. And the “Democrats can’t be trusted to defend us” message (in all of its self-evident absurdity) is out there.
Maybe we need a “Republicans can only be trusted to waste the dollars spent on national security and let attacks happen” meme.
There are qualified Democrats out there for Secretary of Defense. There’s Al Gore, for example, who proved his administrative understanding in the Clinton administration. Susan Rice could handle it and would be a good symbolic appointment. Russ Feingold could handle it as well as Hagel. Then there’s Max Cleland.
Appointments aren’t messages.
Well, they aren’t only messages, but they can indeed send messages. I agree completely, though, that that is a secondary consideration, and that choosing someone who can do the job, and advance your agenda substantively, is more important.
And the “Democrats can’t be trusted to defend us” message (in all of its self-evident absurdity) is out there.
It is, but at long last, it’s not doing very well. That perception has really taken a beating over the past four years – but this is a recent phenomenon, and it’s still something we don’t want to promote.
By the title, I thought this post was going to be about DailyKos and most of the left media deciding to re-embrace their failed tactics of 2009-10. Apparently, they’ve decided that smearing Obama’s character and getting hysterical over rumors is the way to go in 2012. I don’t know if they are trying to drum up audiences post-election or if they are so stupid that they learned nothing from the 2010 midterms where their destructive behavior helped depress the Dem vote and gave the traditional media cover to ignore any positive Obama stories.
When public pronouncements and supposed inside news reports differ, who is one to believe? People who are in desperate need of healthcare, jobs, and cannot afford another economic hit are nervous. They’ve waited four long years for relief, voted for President Obama again, and once again expect him to act like a winner.
Only the Blue Dogs and third party progressive peddle the story that progressives’ self-destructive behavior depressed the Dem vote and gave traditional media cover to ignore any positive Obama stories. Or was the reason for the failure of the 2010 election.
Time to take that dead horse back to the barn.
Myself, I’ll tell you my opinion of the current situation come the time of the President’s budget announcement. Then we will know whether the rumors were true or false.
It’s not just about politics there are lives and health on the line in this discussion which goes beyond gamesmanship.
Only the Blue Dogs and third party progressive peddle the story that progressives’ self-destructive behavior depressed the Dem vote and gave traditional media cover to ignore any positive Obama stories. Or was the reason for the failure of the 2010 election.
A thousand times this.
Absolutely lives are at stake. That is why the progressives who are all acting like it is a game to go over the fiscal cliff piss me off. Millions of people will be hurt if we go over the cliff. But apparently they aren’t as important as making sure Obama appears strong and not “wimpy”.
And I will never agree that the tantrums the professional left threw all over MSNBC and the rest of the media during the 1st 2 years didn’t hurt Dems in the 2010 midterm. Instead of pushing back on the conservative narrative about Obama and Dems, the progressives piled on with even more insults and smears against Obama. That had an impact.
Democrats in Congress (cough, Kent Conrad, Max Baucus, and turncoat Joe Lieberman) should have considered those millions of people who would be hurt by going over the fiscal cliff when they pushed to set up the ridiculous SuperCongress process instead of getting the President’s back. Not standing up now places an even greater number of lives at stake.
You might not agree about 2009 and 2010, but the evidence is that the successful media rollout of the Tea Party, the legitimation of the “dangerous Obama” rhetoric by Democrats running away from him in the 2009 and 2010 elections (Creigh Deeds, Blue Dogs) and the dishonest posturing of the GOP as defenders of Medicare were the issues that moved 2010. The turnout of Democrats was normal because no Democrats did high-quality GOTV campaigns. The turnout of Republicans was emotionally motivated and thus more enthusiasm. What MSNBC and the lefty blogs did doesn’t mean shit; the number of folks exposed to those was minimal compared to the size of the electorate.
Instead of pushing back on the conservative narrative about Obama and Dems, the progressives piled on with even more insults and smears against Obama. That had an impact.
Three points here:
It seems the right-wing is trying to get their confirmation denials implemented through Presidential or candidate action under public attack. Susan Rice’s withdrawal of her name (even though no candidates for anything had been named) has enabled a repeat of this hostage-taking.
If Hagel takes his name out of consideration, this will go on for every new appointment.
It shows fear that the Senate Democratic caucus will strip the power of filibuster of appointments from the GOP. And it’s a pre-emptive strike.
Obama should make public his short list when he makes the appointment and should make sure that both Susan Rice and Chuck Hagel are on the short list for something. And he should deride the press for rumor-mongering.
In this post you don’t seem to have a good word over for Israel. So why do you so warmly support it?
I don’t warmly support it. I support it because the Jews rightly concluded that the West wanted them exterminated and they sought refuge and the ability to govern their own affairs for the first time in 2 millennia. They chose a dangerous and probably unfortunate place to set up shop, but that was decided more than 20 years before I was born. I had no role in those decisions. They were made, and we have to live with them. I will not begrudge Israel’s right to exist.
With the WaPo editorial board against Hagel, it made me think he’s even more right for the job than I initially thought. I really hope he survives.
I don’t want Chuck Hagel to be our next Secretary of Defense
Oh? Any particular favorites, then? Both in terms of raw qualifications, and being able to best execute Obama’s style of foreign policy, that is.
No. No favorites.
Feinstein.
She could do the job just fine, and California Democrats would probably replace her with someone significantly more progressive.