Chuck Hagel Should Be Confirmed

"The Defense Department is Bloated"

"There is a Jewish Lobby"

"The Iraq War was a Mistake"

Such straight talk is surely to be welcomed in American defense policy.  President Obama is to be congratulated for appointing someone who is so different from Rumsfeld, Perle, Cheney et. al--i.e. someone who is not an ideologue.

Both Hagel and Kerry are combat veterans, and as such they share an instinctive reticence about sending troops into harm's way--unlike the more bellicose compensatory swagger of de facto draft-dodgers like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

And, when Hagel retires, I hope and expect that my old classmate from Oxford, Michele Flouronoy, will be tapped as his successor!