Posted on 11/27/2014 11:44:59 AM PST by SeekAndFind
It isn’t often that left, right and center agree about the Obama White House. But the firing of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel this week produced a near-unanimous reaction: President Obama’s foreign policy team is dysfunctional and in need of a stronger tonic than the exit of a low-profile cabinet member with a light policy footprint.
Both Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and The New York Times editorial page agreed that, in the words of the Times, Hagel “was not the core of the Obama administration’s military problem. That lies with the president and a national security policy that has too often been incoherent and shifting at a time of mounting international challenges” and “tightly controlled… by a small group of aides.”
McCain, for his part, told a radio interviewer that his friend Hagel “was never really brought into that real tight circle inside the White House that makes all the decisions which has put us into the incredible debacle that we’re in today throughout the world.”
As Obama’s foreign policy continues to grasp for clear wins abroad — with ISIL still fighting, Iran still stubborn and Vladimir Putin still defiant — the critique of a tight-knit and micromanaging White House national security team is quickly gaining currency in Washington. And while some say that dumping Hagel was intended, in part, to cool the criticism of Obama’s foreign policy machinations, the immediate effect has been to draw more attention to the way life-and-death decisions are made in the White House Situation Room — and why they’re not working out better in trouble spots like from Syria to Ukraine.
Some close observers say the responsibility is borne by a few key officials, including national security advisor Susan Rice and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, who have further centralized decision-making,
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
McCain is the least popular senator in the United States.
Why is he always the senator cited by papers for the Republican point of view on foreign policy?
I guess he will soon be chairman of the armed services committee
Only January 20, 2016 will fix Obama’s foreign policy team.
Blind squirrel moment.
Not a circle, more like a triangle with Valerie Jarrett at the upper tip and Barak Obama and Michelle Obama at the two lower tips
And so here we are, with the world in flames because of their incompetence.
DUH! What was McCain expecting?
Like I said, I won't hold my breath though...
Well he’d better start talking and before the next election if he wants to save his soul.
Who wants to be Defense Secretary when they are micromanaged?
Hagle and McCain have always had man-crushes on one another. I believe they tried to compete to see which could be the most ‘anti-republican’ to get in on all of the MSM talk shows, especially on Sunday mornings.
It will be a good day when both are gone from the political arena, and working for some K Street firm making a zillion dollars a year as lobbyists and on speaking engagements.
Obama and Valerie Jarret decide everything.
other people are just functionaries.
why is that so hard to understand?
Everybody knows McCain is mental, and easily manipulated by the LSM/Progressive crowd. He's one of their plantation RINOs that's always on call to stab common sense Americans in the back.
They like what he says? Just guessing.
I’m hoping McCain will be chosen for Sec Def.
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