Posted on 11/24/2014 10:24:01 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The White House’s defenders will attempt to knock down claims that Defense Sec. Chuck Hagel’s resignation is loaded with implications for the future of this administration.
Cabinet officials come and go, they’ll note, but this White House has made a point of standing by its embattled figures. Former Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius resigned in Aril of this year, well after the controversy surrounding the botched debut of Healthcare.gov. Some speculated that the delay was an intentional effort to disassociate her resignation from the controversy that likely hastened it. Similarly, the political press was shocked when Obama went ahead and accepted former Veterans Affairs Sec. Eric Shinseki’s resignation in late May. Observers called it a departure from “a familiar strategy of protecting embattled Cabinet members,” one which signaled the potentially broad political impact of the VA scandal.
The circumstances of Hagel’s resignation are distinct from those above. Hagel had served in the Obama White House for just two years while the above figures were with Obama from 2009 and were considered figures of great importance to the president’s liberal base. Hagel was not a political asset to the White House in the way that his colleagues and predecessors were, and he had the added weakness of being a Republican at the head of the Pentagon. The last figure friendly toward the GOP whom Obama placed at the head of the DoD went about writing a scathing memoir that was highly critical of both the president and vice president almost immediately after leaving that post. This experience, The New York Times report which revealed Hagel’s impending departure indicated, stung the president and stuck with his aides.
The Times also noted that there were many reasons for Hagel’s departure, and some of them are legitimate. The former Republican senator who had been famously critical of America’s expanded global military footprint was to have largely overseen retrenchment of American forces abroad. When that mission changed, and America became embroiled in another war in Iraq and a new war in Syria, Hagel’s role evolved into something for which he was not prepared.
But the announcement that Hagel was to be jettisoned was also accompanied by the requisite spiteful bad-mouthing from anonymous administration sources which has become so commonplace in the Obama era.
On Monday, NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell revealed that the cast of advisors around Obama was always suspicious of Hagel and his influence on the president’s approach to foreign affairs. “That tight circle never really had a lot of confidence, particularly in Chuck Hagel,” she reported. “Hagel never really proved himself.”
Mitchell also made note of a phenomenon that The Times also observed: The White House was perturbed when Hagel called ISIS an “imminent threat to every interest we have.” Whether this assessment was true or not, that was not what the White House wanted to hear.
“Mr. Hagel has often had problems articulating his thoughts — or administration policy — in an effective manner, and has sometimes left reporters struggling to describe what he has said in news conferences,” The Times reported.
This is all quite unfair. Hagel and other members of the Defense establishment had a bear of a time cleaning up after their president’s routinely impolitic statements about the nature of the ISIS threat.
When, in extemporaneous remarks, Obama told reporters that it was America’s policy to “shrink” ISIS down into a “manageable problem,” it was Hagel who was tapped to clean up those comments. Speaking with CNN reporter Jim Sciutto before an audience of students at the U.S. Naval War College, Hagel insisted that America should dismiss Obama’s off-the-cuff statements and focus only on what he said in his prepared remarks. “No, it’s not contain,” Hagel said of America’s policy toward ISIS. “It’s exactly what the president said: ‘Degrade and destroy.’”
Hagel, the thankless janitor who spent his tenure either cleaning up after Obama’s controversial asides or trying to make sense of the White House’s conflictual approach to foreign affairs, got his reward this week. For Hagel’s part, however, he does not seem prepared to allow the administration to frame him as the problematic element in his relationship with the president. A “senior defense official” told CBS reporter David Martin that Hagel “was fed up with micromanagement from the White House.”
Expect this back and forth in the press to continue, and likely to get worse in the coming weeks.
In the wake of a historic midterm defeat – the second for this administration – the White House has done everything it could to project unfazed strength. It was always ever a front, and the buttresses keeping the edifice of this administration horizontal are starting to buckle. The backbiting that has characterized today’s announcement of the resignation of Hagel is symptomatic of a condition that afflicts every lame duck administration. Despite Obama’s assurances to the contrary, his White House is running out of steam.
What is JV.
Either way, Hagel is no victim and is no conservative.
Agreed he is no conservative but he is not a leftist fascist, either.
Zerohissef has fired general after general: the military is weakened in lost culture and history alone, not to mention its readiness. Instead he elevates a cadre of Praetorian who will follow HIS orders.
He now has 2 cabinet positions he can fill with leftist fascists and can continue to destroy us at a faster rate than previously: he only has 2 more years to cause the most irreparable harm. He will be aided and abetted by his cabinet with no one to even mildly question his actions.
Were I detached an uninterested bystander, he is diabolically Machieavellian. But as someone who cares about what this country is and represents, I am quivering with rage and anger.
“Is Hagel’s resignation a first sign of the administration’s implosion?”
I don’t think so. I think Obama is just done with the political game. Therefore, he doesn’t need a “republican” in his administration anymore.
How many Secretaries of Defense is this under Obama?
Hagel just isn't releasing the terrorists fast enough for Obama!!!
“My name goes on that document , that's a big responsibility,” Hagel said earlier this year. “I'm taking my time. I owe that to the American people, I owe that to the President.”
No Secretary Hagel, you got that last part wrong. Obama expected you to do what HE ordered and that is to release those 79 terrorists HE cleared for transfer, and do it quickly! How dare you take your time on HIS order!!!
Folks, there are now 143 terrorists left in Gitmo. That means the new Defense Secretary must release 72 terrorists once he is appointed.
Seems the one question that should be asked of the nominee is “Are you going to sign off on the release of those 72 terrorists Obama has cleared for transfer?”
I truly believe Obama wants the Gitmo detainees here on this soil, preferably at Thomson Prison, and once there are less than 100 terrorists left in Gitmo, he plans to move them here. They have hired a warden at Thomson and they are currently beefing up the security perimeter there. I know, I know, he isn't allowed to bring the terrorists here.
Well, Obama wasn't allowed to trade terrorists and he did that. AND, as the President of the United States, he is suppose to uphold the Constitution and he just defied the Constitution with his latest move on immigration.
We have lost so many of America's Sons and Daughters in this war and it will be an absolute slap in the face of their most noble sacrifice to bring any terrorists here. Our Troops fight and risk their lives, and so many have given their precious lives, to keep the terrorists away from us!! It will be the absolute epitome of disgrace to their sacrifice if any of the remaining terrorists end up here!
Not to mention, we continue to keep our Sons locked up in Leavenworth as the worst of the worst terrorists are released! I knew the gravity of their resolve to empty Gitmo when the legislative director for Congresswoman Edwards, Chris Schlosser, told me and Sgt Miller's mother in a meeting last April: “But We're Trying To Close Gitmo!!!” He said that sternly and boldly as an answer to my question to him, “What do you have to say to this mother whose son continues to sit in Leavenworth as your guy in the White House just released 5 of the worst terrorists?”
We have paid a Heavy price for the re-election of Obama. Obama and the Dems counted on those “purists” Conservatives who refused to vote for Romney, and in doing so, helped re-elect Obama. Now Obama and the Dems are counting on those folks again to disrupt and help divide our party.
I'll say it again, we all better stick together to fight the progressive left! Like Andrew Breitbart said, “you're either with us or you're on the other side!”
As we move forward, I believe UNITY is the only way we win! Stick together, like the Dems do, no matter what! Or play right into the hands of the Democrats and suffer even more horrendous consequences!
Beverly Perlson
The Band of Mothers
“I’m sure he can dish out a lot of dirt.”
I don’t think so. Betting Obama and his tools have kept Hagel at an arms length and there is no way he has been privy to any information that can damage Obama. There are only a handful who know the true Obama agenda and their loyalty is not because of Obama but the agenda, which is to compromise America.
They are calling it a “firing” not a resignation.
RE: How many Secretaries of Defense is this under Obama?
Two down.... how many more to go? Who knows?
Hagel knew the end was near when he balked on Obama’s demand for mandatory hands-on homosexual training in boot camp.
/s
Around January 21st if I remember correctly.
This firing is a sacrificial lamb so that Obama can make a really distasteful appointment and pick a fight with the new GOP senate over who has the power to confirm an appointment.
Count on it.
Who’s calling it a firing? I love it!
I beg to differ. I met and talked with Hagel just prior to his first election as Senator from Nebraska. I was not impressed and he blatantly lied about his views on several issues in order to be elected. I don’t believe he has any real feeling for the military personnel he purports to support. I spent a career as both an enlisted Marine and an AF officer and his support for the troops and the missions has been slim and self serving. He has given indications that he has passing concern for the enlisted troops, but only the lower ranks he feels are being screwed over; none for more senior NCOs and none for the officer ranks at all. Hagel was SecDef because is a compliant uber-RINO who is against any military involvement anywhere. He has taken the lead for the kenyan in gutting the military and pushing all of obama’s “reforms” of the military. He is no patriot, he is self-serving, period. He is a leftist.
Obama throws his grandmother under the bus
Obama throws Border patrol agents under the bus
Obama throws Tomaroosi under the bus
Obama throws US citizens under the bus.
Obama stand by Obama and only Obama.
Rand Paul Declares War on ISIS—and Allows Boots on the Ground
Daily Beast | 11/24/2014 | Olivia Nuzzi
Posted on 11/24/2014, 1:26:57 PM by SeekAndFind
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3230580/posts
Implosion will be when Jarrett resigns.
JV is junior varsity, the next to best “B” team.
The JV comment was like when the score of a pro football game is very lopsided, and the winning team plays its backup players and rests the starters.
Shep is reporting on FOX right now that he was fired by the usurper.
True, but I think it's Valeri Jarrett, not the empty suit.
Far left recess appointment coming, and Harry Reid can wash his hands of it.
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