Can the Republican Party be Saved?

Any Republican saying the party is NOT in trouble has a reading comprehension problem IMHO.  Over the last six years, state parties are gradually being taken over by the hard right 'radicals' to use Sen Hatch's word.

In my own state of Oklahoma, there was a fight at the OK GOP State Convention in May where a punch was thrown along with chairs and paper, delegations were shut off from voting, and the Convention adjourned before it was complete.  Made the national news.  Imagine being in the delegation the Convention is discussing to make a decision that affects the delegation, but then having the curtain drawn to separate you from the main Convention so you are allowed to vote  The hard right has taken over the OK GOP from all accounts.  If you want proof look no further that the OK GOP website where the Chair of OK GOP has this picture on the site:

In checking into the background of today's Minuteman, I discovered

The Minuteman Project is an activist organization started in April 2005 by a group of private individuals in the United States to monitor the United States – Mexico border's flow of illegal immigrants. Co-founded by Jim Gilchrist, the name derives from the Minutemen, militiamen who fought in the American Revolution. The Minuteman Project describes itself as "a citizens' Neighborhood Watch on our border", and has attracted media attention to illegal immigration.

The project (Minuteman)  has generated controversy, drawing criticism from former Mexican President Vicente Fox and former United States President George W. Bush, who expressed dislike for "vigilante" border projects.  In the 1960's the Minuteman along with the John Birchers were the biggest anti-John F Kennedy groups operating openly with rallies against him.  Both groups were investigated in the 60's by the FBI.

Militia and Minuteman in the 18th century were  two separate groups but today many people use them  interchangeably.  Still haven't figured out why we need a militia today when we have the National Guard.  The ones in the Texas Hill Country frankly frighten me reminding me of neo-Nazi's as I have witnessed how they goosestep march:

Although the terms militia and minutemen are sometimes used interchangeably today, in the 18th century there was a decided difference between the two. Militia were men in arms formed to protect their towns from foreign invasion and ravages of war. Minutemen were a small hand-picked elite force which were required to be highly mobile and able to assemble quickly. Minutemen were selected from militia muster rolls by their commanding officers. Typically 25 years of age or younger, they were chosen for their enthusiasm, reliability, and physical strength. Usually about one quarter of the militia served as Minutemen, performing additional duties as such. The Minutemen were the first armed militia to arrive or await a battle.

Last I checked, Oklahoma was not a border state which brings into question why have the Minuteman symbol on your website.  Do they honestly think the Federal Government is going to try and take over the State?  What minority in their right mind would want to be a member of a major political party whose symbol has become the Minuteman?

When I first moved to Oklahoma, I used to tell friends from other states that they would not believe this GOP as it was unlike any other.  Then I decided to get involved after the 2000 national election thinking I could make a difference and along with others who had recently moved to Oklahoma bring some common sense to the GOP.  We were wrong.  After  I became totally involved, it dawned on me the radical right was gradually taking over the party and nothing anyone could do because the State Party had sold out to the religious right and social conservatives leaving those with common sense out in the cold.    It was not worth getting upset after sitting through two State Conventions where it was all about fighting with the hard right and accomplishing very little.  When the former Chair resigned to run for statewide office, any hope of common sense returning had gone out the window.

Found this article from Senator Hatch on Utah while researching for this article and discovered the 'radical' right movement has spread:

Orrin Hatch: ‘Radicals’ Could Overtake Utah GOP

David Taintor,  8:53 AM EST, Wednesday January 9, 2013 

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) told the Deseret News that "radicals" who don't share Republican Party values could overtake the state GOP.  

“Thank goodness they’re not the majority,” Hatch said in an interview, published Wednesday. “But we’ve got to watch that or we’ll end up with a state dominated by radicals.” 

Hatch voted in favor of the fiscal cliff deal, but he told the paper he understands why some of his Utah colleagues did not. “Those who voted against it did so to protect themselves, I guess, from some of these radical outside groups," he said. “I don’t find any fault with the delegation because we’ve got a special climate out there that is very difficult.”

We have a United States Senator discussing the climate in Utah for any member of the House going against what the 'radical' groups want as 'difficult.'  How many other states have the same problem?  Has the Republican Party allowed the John Birchers, Minuteman, Militia, hard right social and religious conservatives, along with anti-government types to take over?  Is that why some House Members who we thought had some common sense are now acting like people we don't know?  Are they afraid to lose their seats and be replaced by this radical right group which would make it worse?  These are questions that need answers.  Senator Hatch spoke out but will others?

Yesterday on Twitter, I found a link to the Republican Main Street Partnership naming former US Rep Steve LaTourette (R-OH) who just retired from the House to lead their group.  At the same time they dropped "Republican" from their name which speaks volumes.  Rep LaTourette called the Grover Norquist Tax Pledge "Crap" last fall which made me laugh.  He represented the people of his District well along with the State of Ohio -- would have loved to see some group tell him how to vote as that would have been worth the price of tickets.  The sad part is that Rep LaTourette is just the type of Republican we needed to keep in the Congress who brought some common sense to the House.  Maybe he can do more as President of this group to bring common sense back to the GOP.  His first statement as the new President of Main Street Partnership (MSP) (formely Republican MSP) is a great start (my bold in the article):

Former U.S. Rep Steve LaTourette (R-OH) Statement on the New Main Street Partnership 

January 8, 2013 By RMSP

(Washington, D.C.) – “Earlier today, the Board of Directors voted in favor of changing the name we do business under to simply the ‘Main Street Partnership.’ 

“While we have changed our name, we have not changed our values or our mission. We will continue to be a right of center organization and continue to represent the governing wing of the Republican Party. 

“Partisanship has become deeply poisonous to the process in Washington over the last few years.  As someone who just left Congress, I understand this more than most. 

“We at Main Street understand that to begin to turn back this tide and to begin to restore the American people’s faith in Washington we must celebrate – not attack – those on both sides of the aisle who are willing to work together to find solutions to the serious challengers we face as a country. 

“While we remain Republicans, we are committed to reaching out to fair-minded members of the Democratic Party. We understand that bipartisan compromise – by it’s very definition – means working with members of the other party. 

“Compromise doesn’t mean surrendering – it means success.  Compromise is not an act of political cowardice – indeed it is the exact opposite, it is an act of incredible political courage.
“We need more voices in Washington willing to put the best interests of the American people above petty partisanship. That is what we have done at Main Street over the years and that is what we will continue to do. 

“We look forward to working with our centrist Republican members in the months and years ahead and engaging fair-minded independents and Democrats who want to help do what is right for this country.”

This 'Statement' of the MSP is about all Americans not just a select few and should be what governs the RNC which has its head buried in the sand pretending nothing happened on November 6, 2012.  RNC would do well to adopt the same 'Statement' but that would mean telling State parties to rid yourself of 'radicals' which this Koch Brothers Chair doesn't have the nerve or backbone to do IMHO.

The Main Street Partnership is dedicated to promoting and building a pragmatic, thoughtful, fiscally conservative, and inclusive “Governing Majority,” where political debate is encouraged to promote solutions to improve the lives of all Americans. Embracing the full spectrum of center-right ideologies and values in order to build coalitions, the Main Street Partnership is the largest organization of elected leaders who are in the mold of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. For more information on the Main Street Partnership, visit our website at www.republicanmainstreet.org.

Yesterday a link to an article about the RNC co-Finance Chair came in my email which led to today's post, Can the Republican Party be Saved.  Decided to include the article to show that not all the RNC are happy with what happened in the 2012 election cycle even though the current Koch Brothers RNC Chair doesn't seem to get it.  Now maybe it will wake him up (not holding my breath) with the RNC Co-Finance Chair, Georgette Mosbacher, hitting the ceiling about the Republican Party.  She speaks for many of us who are furious what we are seeing out of today's Republicans who refuse to acknowledge they got shellacked on November 6, 2012, making all kinds of excuses why they lost.  Mosbacher nails the reasons they lost:

Mosbacher: I’m Furious at My Own Party

by Michelle Cottle Jan 8, 2013 4:45 AM EST 

RNC Finance Committee co-chair Georgette Mosbacher tells Michelle Cottle that she’s “mad as hell” about what Republicans have done to themselves.  

Best not to ask GOP fundraising legend Georgette Mosbacher about the state of her beloved party unless you want an earful. The co-chair of the RNC’s Finance Committee (and CEO of Borghese cosmetics), Mosbacher is “mad as hell” about the myriad ways the “brand has been tarnished”: the sorry state of the presidential primary process, the ongoing alienation of Latino voters, the “outrageous” Senate candidates that the party ran this cycle, the epic failure of the fiscal-cliff negotiations, and, most recently, the House’s dithering over disaster aid for the victims of superstorm Sandy. 

“I’m angry!” fumes Mosbacher. “I’m angry about the stupid mistakes that were self-inflicted.” It’s this last part she finds the most enraging. Though she believes the party has “unfairly” been defined by its recent mistakes, she is very clear about where the ultimate blame lies: “We did it to ourselves.” 

Mosbacher is, of course, not alone in her ire. Postelection, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a hastily assembled group of Republican leaders laboring to figure out where the party went wrong last cycle and how to get it back on track. So far, however, Mosbacher is unimpressed by their efforts. 

“I have not seen an honest postmortem assessment yet,” she told me. “I have not seen anything that gives me any comfort right now.” 

This is an unfortunate development for the GOP, because, as Mosbacher explained it to me this weekend: “I’m not writing any checks, and I’m not asking anyone else to write any checks until I hear something that makes sense to me.” 

The root problem, as she sees it: the sorry state of the party’s leadership in Washington.

Read more of the article at The Daily Beast

Will the RNC take Mosbacher's words to heart or will they continue their trek to the hard right.  If the first few days of the new Congress are any indication, they didn't learn one thing from November 6, 2012, and are continuing down the path to destruction of the Republican Party as more and more people question why they are in a Party that is so hard right declaring war on about every group around.  Yet they do not believe in the Government unless it is for their own personal cause as evidenced by Republican House Members who voted for disaster relief aid for their home states in the recent past but not for Hurricane Sandy victims from NY/NJ.  Guess you could say they don't want to help people from blue states but a lot of Republicans live in those blue states as well who they are treating like chopped liver.

Earlier in December former Utah Governor John Huntsman who was a candidate for President as a Republican gave a scathing interview saying the Republican Party is "devoid of soul" which I happen to agree with as we have seen up close and personal recently with the Hurricane Sandy vote.  Before that it was the jobs bill for veterans, farm bill to help drought victims from last summer, women's issues, veteran's issues, and the list goes on of groups that have been dissed by the Republican Party in favor of the wealthy this last few years since they took control of the House:

Former Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman took a critical look at his own party, asserting that it is “devoid of a soul.” In a lengthy interview with the UK’s Daily Telegraph, Huntsman elaborated on what he viewed as missteps, and offered some advice going forward. 

It’s “troubling” that the party currently doesn’t have a leader or a “defined agenda.” But the good news, he said, is “that will come in time” through the “reformation process.” The GOP must “return the system to the people,” Huntsman argued.

Where is a leader?  No one seems to want to step forward and take control moving the party back to the center right.  Are they that afraid of the Tea Party who only 8% of the Country identify with according to Rasmussen or are they afraid the Koch Brothers and their allies who run the Tea Party and other hard right groups?  Are they are afraid to stand up against the Koch's and other hard right fringe groups demands  which could lead to being primaried and a freeze on donations to their campaigns?  Thought this excerpt below from an article about the 8% was interesting hitting the mark about the Tea Party that many activists have been saying for several years.  We never saw most of these people working campaigns in the past but then they took over and basically told longtime Republicans to hit the road -- they didn't need our help or expertise.

The Koch Brothers front organization, Americans for Prosperity, are doing the dirty work of the Koch's.  Noticed in my state when they would speak at Republican functions, they didn't seem to have a grasp of how Government works but just repeated their talking points.  When you asked a germane question, you would get a blank stare and they would go on to the next question.  In talking to friends around the Country, they had the same reaction.

This excerpt gets it right about the Tea Party IMHO.  Some people have become rich off the scams being perpetrated by today's conservatives.  Ask Bill Kristol what he thinks of the scams by conservative groups.

WHY THE RECEDING POPULARITY OF THE TEA PARTY?  PEOPLE EVENTUALLY WISE UP TO THE FACT THEY ARE BEING PLAYED FOR FOOLS. 

You can attribute much of their dwindling success to the information put out by Move On , Occupy Wall Street. and many of the progressive blogs.  These groups banged heavily away with the facts regarding the true organizers behind the Tea Party and their other affiliated groups and people such as “Americans for Prosperity” and “Freedomworks”–none other than the right-wing fanatical plutocrat Koch Brothers. 

Initially, many of the members of the Tea Party were sincere Americans from the working class who were and still are fed up with business as usual in Washington and the leadership of the Wall Street  investor class.  They fell like easy prey for the propaganda financed by the Koch brothers.  It sounded good and also much of it played on their racist fears that the browns and blacks were getting all the “good” jobs and being given government handouts.  All the Tea Party cries of sending all the illegal immigrants back to Mexico and/or putting them in jail perfectly suited the goals of the plutocrat leaders as such solutions 1) raised hatred and anger of the Tea Party members thus making them easier to manipulate; and 2) meant more money for the instigators in terms of growing the prison population in the USA for the Wall Street corporations who now manage our prisons.  They never drew the line connecting the money going to support these prisoners as coming out of the taxpayers pockets, but Move On and Occupy did–again and again and again.  Eventually people have come to understand what an utter sham the entire Tea Party was and continues to some extent to be. 

Ironically, all the while the Tea Party was on the rise, it was the leaders of this movement who were after the government handouts--in the form of relaxed EPA requirements for their operations (thus more “freedom” to pollute our air and waters with impunity);  more agricultural subsidies for corporate agra-businesses and Park Avenue “farmers”; more tax breaks skewed for the rich; more more more–but all for them, not the majority. 

Gradually, the people came to realize these phonies for who they are.  I suspect that most of the 8 to 12% remaining are the hard core plutocratic right wing millionaires and billionaires such as Donald Trump and Sheldon Adelson.  They were the plants in the audience.  The funny thing now is that they are fast becoming the only ones left to listen to the sound of their own lies and bullshit.

The Koch Brothers and their cronies are the ones destroying the Republican Party of the center right for their own selfish whims IMHO.  They want no EPA or regulations on their business but yet want to keep subsidies on oil and gas and big conglomerate farms which benefit them.  They are more then willing to take handouts when they are the recipient but not when members of the middle class are involved -- we are on our own.  In the small minds of the wealthy GOP donors, the middle class is supposed to give up our benefits from the Government so the wealthy can keep theirs.  In their small world it is every senior citizens for themselves with no safety net even though they paid into social security for years and it is not part of the budget.  It doesn't stop the wealthy donors from wanting to do away with the program as we know it.

The Kochs and other wealthy GOP donors seem to have a warped sense of what it means to be an American IMHO.  The fact they started the Tea Party to take over the Republican Party should scare everyone.  We need two major parties or the Democrats will run amok just like the GOP when they were in charge of all branches of Government.  I have a hunch right now though that if Democrats were in charge of the House, they would do a lot better as it is fresh in their minds how they blew it in 2010.

This says it all about the Koch Bros Tea Party and their agenda they are now forcing on what used to be common sense Republicans in the House:

Tea Party Absolutism: The High Cost Of Hating Government 

January 7th, 2013 5:27 pm 

Nicholas Wapshott 

The tourniquet applied by the outgoing Congress to the economy allows a two-month breather before we are consumed by the next deadline. The president and his party can allow themselves a brief moment of celebration for imposing higher taxes on the richest Americans, but the next stage in fixing the nation’s fiscal problems may not be as easy. By the end of February, lawmakers must find enough cuts in public spending to allow the debt ceiling to be raised. Two more months of uncertainty will prevent businesses and consumers from making spending decisions that would bolster the economic recovery. 

The devil is not so much in the detail of the arguments to come as the big picture that frames the debilitating running debate. 

While the difference between the sides is ostensibly over taxes and public spending and borrowing, the more profound division is over where government should begin and end. For many of the Republican Party’s Tea Party insurgents, the choice is even more fundamental: whether there should be a government at all. Their unbending position, demanding an ever-diminishing role for the federal government, has levied an enormous unnecessary cost on everyone else. 

Since Republicans regained control of the House in the 2010 midterms, when the Tea Party tide was in full force, they have attempted to freeze the size of government, coincidentally putting a brake on economic recovery. They have vetoed attempts at further economic stimulus, encouraged America’s economy to be downgraded by the ratings agencies by threatening not to extend the debt ceiling, and tried to veto any and every tax increase in the fiscal cliff talks. 

Their aim is to shrink government by starving it of funds. Such uncompromising absolutism has led to the dampening of business confidence and investment that would have created jobs. 

It is not just the economy that has suffered from the absolute positions held by the anti-government rump in the GOP. Their insistence that the Founding Fathers intended us to be allowed to carry guns of any sort, including the rapid-fire assault weapon that killed 20 children and six adults in Newtown, CT, last month, continues to hamper attempts to curb the nation’s murderous gun violence. Ghosts from the 18th century are preying on our schoolchildren, abetted by those who believe that compromise on amending our gun laws is surrendering to the forces of big government. Such unbending absolutism costs human lives.

Are the Koch Brothers and their unending quest for power over today's Republican Party payback for President Reagan kicking out the John Birchers who their father helped found?  Would they be that shallow?   Since the John Birchers have been brought back in the Republican Party, I believe they would.  Some on the right call the Tea Party movement the new John Birchers which should give everyone pause.

This excerpted article illustrates the five reasons why America today has a Republican problem which is caused IMO by the Koch's Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity who are out front while the Koch's and other wealthy donors stay behind the scenes pulling strings:

5 reasons why America has a Republican problem 

January 9, 2013  

And as long as the “carried interest” loophole gives millionaire hedge fund managers a massive tax break, we have a revenue problem, too

(snip)  

1. The Republicans’ problem is that the deficit is shrinking too fast. That’s why they want to act now to gut Medicare and Social Security while they have the chance. FACT: The federal deficit has fallen faster over the past three years than it has in any such period since World War II. This fact blows away every Republican talking point because it points out 1) George W. Bush created the trillion dollar deficit that the GOP blames on this president, 2) under President Obama federal spending has grown less than any president since Eisenhower and 3) our recovery, which is much better than most of the world’s, is shrinking the deficit. 

2. President Obama has already signed $2.3 trillion in deficit cuts, 3/4 of it spending cuts.Until the Bush Tax Cuts expired and Republicans were forced to deal with revenue increases, President Obama has cut the Bush deficit entirely with spending cuts. These spending cuts hurt the economy much more than tax increases, especially tax increases on the rich. This seems to be the GOP plan: Keep the deficit crisis going to cut the parts of government we don’t like. And keep saying spending is the problem so you don’t have to cuts ridiculous tax loopholes that give away billions to those who need it least. (my bold)

 

3. We have two long-term problems — long-term unemployment and long-term debt. And only one matters right now.Anyone who tells you that America is like Greece is insulting your intelligence. We have no worries about paying our debt. Republicans have claimed for over 4 years now that borrowing would cause rampant inflation and the world would eventually stop buying our debt. The opposite happened. We will have a serious debt problem in a decade or two as baby boomers retire and live long, expensive lives. And it will be much worse if we don’t deal with our real crisis. 

Our much more serious problem is long-term unemployment. Nearly 5 million Americans have been out of work for over 27 weeks. The longer you’ve been out of a job, the harder it is to find a new one and the less likely it is you’ll ever make up the earning and salary growth you lost. Poorer and middle class Americans will have to work harder and be more dependent on the government. In a sane society, we would be doing everything we could to get these people working, even direct government hiring if necessary. But the future of these Americans is being sacrificed to the Republican agenda. 

4. If our health care costs were in line with costs in other countries, we would be looking at budget surpluses, not deficits.We already pay for each other’s insurance, just in the dumbest possible way. For what we pay for health care we could be covering every American for less if we weren’t forced to deal with the Republican Party’s willingness to prioritize corporations over people. 

5. Fixing the deficit is easy. Just put people back to work.The Bush tax breaks were designed to solve a problem that Republicans had been avoiding for years — a balanced budget. When you have a balanced budget, you can’t cut the programs you don’t like just because you don’t like them. So create a deficit and start cutting! The bulk of our deficit comes from purposely dumb Bush decisions and can easily be rectified by putting people back to work. The fact that we are talking about cutting instead of jobs is a tribute to just how bad our Republican problem really is.

It is sad in my world, when a progressive website makes more sense then conservative ones.  They have the facts not spin/lies of Fox News, Rush, Hannity, Beck, et al who are not giving us the truth.  What do this group of pundits hope to accomplish?  Keep more of their millions while making more off the backs of the middle class?  That is as good of explanation as any because the Fox and talk show rhetoric and lies are so far over the top don't see how anyone can believe them.  Worst part is that they say something on the air and some of today's Republicans go mouth their words.

Beyond disgusting that many of the Republicans in Congress are devoid of common sense today as they are afraid of their own shadows not wanting to be primaried by the likes of the Koch Brothers, Club for Growth, and others who want them to bend to their will or else.  No backbones to stand up and tell the hard right groups to shove it and actually vote for the people of America not worrying about being defeated for reelection.  Many of us would roll up our sleeves to help honest Republican candidates who stand up to the fringe movement get reelected but those Republicans are few and far between as most bow to the Koch Brothers and other wealthy donors.

Can the Republican Party be Saved?  Not until we get some actual leaders with backbones who tell the fringe and hard right to take a hike because it is obvious that the two sides cannot co-exist.  It came out yesterday that Democrats are now the majority of Americans which should shock no one.  Not hard to understand why when lifelong Republicans like me are considering becoming a Democrat.  For now staying to see what happens with the GOP.

One thing is definite -- will not support or work for current Republicans to take back the Senate or keep the House in 2014 as they have not earned that right with their obstructionism which has hurt the economy and the American people.  This group of GOP leaders in Congress has proven they are wimps with no backbones who are  afraid to stand up to wealthy donors and the hard right.  Time for new leadership in 2014 to work across the aisle to get the Country back on track as well as the Republican Party.

Obama Nominates Former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel to be SecDef Putting his Stamp on Foreign Policy

After spending the end of last week in Dallas for the Cotton Bowl, visiting the Kennedy Museum at the Book Depository, and discovering the sports media didn't quite get the real essence of the debacle that is Jerry's World, I am back.

This was my fourth visit to the Kennedy Museum at the Book Depository but had not been there for several years and was surprised at the subtle changes.  It was nice to find out that Live Oak Trees grow rapidly -- not the case of ones we had in TX but good cover the story they were presenting.  Left the Museum feeling more convinced that we don't have the truth about the Kennedy Assassination even today which should be an indictment of the Nixon Cabal that took over from the corrupt LBJ and his goons.

What bothered me the most was the deja vu feeling I had when looking at the hatred toward Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy by the John Birchers and Minuteman -- they were opposed to the efforts to desegregate the public schools and the universities.It sounds like same group of haters who vilify Hispanics/Blacks/Gays/Women and believe Obama is the anti-christ.  Only difference is that they were Democrats back in the 60's and Republicans today.

That same military/industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about, and JFK ran up against who wanted to go to war in Vietnam, is still in operation today pushing for no cuts in the defense department and for us to attack Iran in order to take out their nuclear capability and then on to Syria.  Some of these people have been advocating nuclear war with first Russia and now Iran since the early 60's.  The farther we went through the Museum, the more you became aware that we are seeing strands of that same mentality that existed in the 60's with the hawk crowd who are wealthy, get even wealthier from defense and oil and gas when you go to war, and think nothing of sending young men and now women into war.  Frightening to wake up and be back with the same mentality of the Koch Brothers father who helped found the John Birch Society and Ezra Taft Benson who were good friends.  Benson hated Eisenhower and went on to lead the Mormon Church while keeping in contact with the John Birchers.

Now with the election over and Obama about to be sworn in for four more years, he is now going forward with his choices to lead his foreign policy team of Kerry (State), Hagel (SecDef), and Brennan (CIA).  Hagel is being opposed by the same cabal that got us into  Iraq where we had no reason to be except a lot of defense contractors became even wealthier.  Now that same group wants to attack Syria?  Obama has other ideas and is nominating Former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, a one-time Republican who dared to criticize the Bush Administration for its Iraq policy, as the new Secretary of Defense.  Hagel essentially became a man without a Party after refusing to endorse John McCain for President with Palin as his VP.  Sound like he is pretty smart to me.

As a Vietnam foot soldier veteran, he saw the war up close and personal and it has affected his thinking when it comes to going into war when you are not attacked.  I fully support Chuck Hagel.   One thing I have admired about Hagel over the years is he is outspoken and not for sale which cannot be said about a lot of members of Congress today.  I have been very pleasantly surprised at how well SecDef Panetta has done but it is time for a change and for Obama to name his own person not a Clintonite.

A new day is dawning in the Obama Administration as we are about to see a different four years then the first four years.  Looks to me like it is only going to get better as Hagel understands the Defense Department and that we cannot afford to spend recklessly like we have been doing since 2001 driving up the deficit following 9/11.  The GOP foreign-policy establishment is about to get their heads handed to them and IMHO why Bolton, Cheney, and others are fighting the Hagel nomination.  Their Golden Goose is about to get its wings clipped.

This article from The Daily Beast by Peter Beinart is excerpted -- the original article is lengthy but well worth the read to illustrate what is happening in DC with the Hagel nomination being challenged by Republicans in the Senate:

What makes Hagel so important, and so threatening to the Republican foreign-policy elite, is that he is one of the few prominent Republican-aligned politicians and commentators (George Will and Francis Fukuyama are others, but such voices are rare) who was intellectually changed by Iraq. And Hagel was changed, in large measure, because he bore within him intellectual (and physical) scar tissue from Vietnam. As my former colleague John Judis captured brilliantly in a 2007 New Republic profile, the Iraq War sparked something visceral in Hagel, as the former Vietnam rifleman realized that, once again, detached and self-interested elites were sending working-class kids like himself to die in a war they couldn’t honestly defend. It is certainly true that some politicians who served in Vietnam—for instance, John McCain—did not react to Iraq that way. But it is also true that the fact that so few American politicians and pundits lived the kind of wartime hell Hagel endured made it easier for them to pass through the Iraq years unscathed. It’s no coincidence that the other senator most deeply enraged by Iraq was ex-Marine James Webb, another former hawkish Republican who saw the war through his own personal Vietnam prism.

After reading that paragraph from the Beinart article, I was thinking back to former Secretary of State Colin Powell who attempted to bring some reason and common sense to the Pres George W Bush Administration but he had to go against the Rumsfeld/Cheney hawks who eventually got us into Iraq with bad intelligence information that was presented to the United Nations.  President Eisenhower was right to warn Americans about the growing military/industrial complex as we are still seeing that growth today.  If Romney would have been elected, the growth would have gone unabated and bankrupted other programs like social security and medicare which this group of Republicans don't see as necessary.

It is a fact in the early 90's the mergers in the defense industry were so prevalent that the checks and balances that existed between mid size companies and the giants completely disappeared.  Never could figure out why Clinton along with Bush 41 pushed all the mergers giving huge payouts to executives of the companies to merge.  Today those merged positions make well over $20M a year which is obscene.  Why did the President of Lockheed Martin get a $2M pay raise last year when the F-35 is behind schedule and over budget?  You could say that is private industry but the money to pay the CEO comes in large part from defense contracts which are funded by the US taxpayers.

Fully support Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense as he brings a perspective to the position that has long been missing -- actual boots on the ground experience.   He is not a hawk on war but he is also not an isolationist.  With the people who are opposing Hagel, I am supporting him even more believing that President Obama has made an excellent choice for Secretary of Defense that he is announcing today.

Will President Obama finally be able to put his stamp on his foreign policy with the nomination of John Kerry as Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, and John Brennan as CIA Director?  Sure looks like that is the Obama plan and one we endorse:

Why Hagel Matters 

by Peter Beinart Jan 7, 2013 4:45 AM EST

If media reports are true, Barack Obama will soon nominate Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense. If so, it may prove the most consequential foreign-policy appointment of his presidency. Because the struggle over Hagel is a struggle over whether Obama can change the terms of foreign-policy debate.

(snip)

If the former senator is confirmed over Republican objections as Obama’s new secretary of defense, it could signal the beginning of a new era in American foreign policy, says Peter Beinart.

What the Republican foreign-policy establishment fears is that with Hagel as secretary of defense, it will be impossible for Obama to minimize the dangers of war with Iran, as George W. Bush minimized the dangers of war with Iraq. Hagel would be to the Obama administration what Dwight Eisenhower was in the 1950s, what Colin Powell was in the 1990s, and what, to some degree, ex-Mossad head Meir Dagan was in the Netanyahu government, the military man who bluntly reminds his colleagues that war, once unleashed, cannot be easily controlled. 

“Once you start” a war with Iran, Hagel told the Atlantic Council in 2010, “you’d better be prepared to find 100,000 troops, because it may take that.” You can’t say “it’ll be a limited warfare. I don’t think any nation can ever go into it that way.” For Hagel’s ex-friends in the Republican foreign-policy class, such a statement is kryptonite, because they know that given the American public’s weariness of war, a president who outlined the risks that way would have trouble gaining popular support. It’s also likely that Hagel’s position would be reinforced by the leaders of the uniformed military, some of whom have already expressed skepticism about bombing Iran. 

More generally, Hagel’s Republican critics realize that Iraq has changed his view of American power. To call Hagel an isolationist is silly. Unlike Pat Buchanan or Ron Paul, he is enthusiastic about international institutions and foreign aid. But Iraq and Afghanistan have convinced Hagel that boosting American military spending, and extending America’s global military footprint, can weaken national security if they drive America deeper into debt. Like his hero, Eisenhower, who slashed defense spending because, according to his Treasury secretary, he “feared deficits almost more than he feared the communists,” Hagel believes the defense budget must “be pared down,” because he refuses to divorce the conversation about military spending from the conversation about fiscal solvency. Unlike the Republican foreign-policy elite who for eight years cheered as the Bush administration charged its expansive “war on terror” to the nation’s credit card, Hagel does not view substantial cuts to the Bush-era defense budget as a retreat from American global power. To the contrary, he views them as essential to restoring the economic strength that must undergird that power. In that way as well, Hagel’s insistence on learning the lessons of the past 10 years would threaten the historical amnesia that governs Republican foreign policy. 

But that’s only half the story. Understanding why Hagel’s nomination could change the terms of foreign-policy debate also requires understanding the state of foreign-policy discourse in the Democratic Party. If the defining characteristic of Republican foreign-policy discourse in Washington today is amnesia, the defining Democratic characteristic is timidity. And Hagel would challenge that as well.

In the Democratic Party today, ascending to a top foreign-policy job is like ascending to a federal judgeship: the less you say that anyone could possibly disagree with, the better your chances. Partly, this is a residue of the hoary, and still extant, Democratic fear of being deemed insufficiently tough by the Republican right. During the Bush years, I attended some brainstorming sessions convened by Democratic-leaning think thanks and foundations aimed at rethinking party foreign policy, and what struck me was the degree to which Fox News had gotten inside people’s heads. It was virtually impossible to have a blue-sky conversation about, for instance, how seriously people took the threat from Al Qaeda terror, or whether they believed it possible to deter a nuclear Iran, without the conversation getting sidetracked by a discussion of whether even entertaining such questions was politically viable. 

In recent years, as the GOP’s post-Vietnam foreign-policy advantage has disappeared, Democratic fears of right-wing attack have eased somewhat. But the habits of caution, and the bias against provocative and independent thought, remains. Consider the fate of Kenneth Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon, two Brookings Institution scholars once considered top contenders for senior foreign-policy jobs in a Democratic administration. Instead, both men have remained at Brookings while their contemporaries cycle in and out of government. The reason? Pollack and O’Hanlon vocally supported invading Iraq, the former in a readable and influential book and the latter in a blunt interview with Bill O’Reilly on Fox. That might make sense had the people who beat Pollack and O’Hanlon out for top jobs been vocal Iraq War opponents. But for the most part, Pollack and O’Hanlon were bested not by people who clearly opposed invading Iraq but by people who took no clear public position one way or another. That’s true of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who conducted four interviews with National Public Radio in the six months leading up to the war in which she made many sage comments but never revealed whether she supported the invasion. And it’s true of Hagel’s competitor for secretary of defense, Michèle Flournoy, a smart, well-qualified, decent woman who on March 4, 2003—15 days before the war began—conducted an online chat about Iraq with The Washington Post. I defy anyone to read it and determine whether she supported the war. 

When Obama won the presidency, some hoped that his example might alter this culture of caution. Obama had defeated Hillary Clinton, after all, in part because he made the risky decision to publicly oppose the Iraq War at a time when most other Democratic politicians were either supporting it or keeping their heads down. Early in the presidential campaign, Obama had also made unusually candid statements about Israel, noting that discussions of Israeli policy were “much more open ... in Israel than they are sometimes here in the United States” and that “there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel.” 

But ironically, the dynamic proved almost exactly the opposite. Precisely because Obama, from the very beginning, was considered vaguely edgy on foreign policy, he surrounded himself with advisers who gave him political cover. Thus, during the 2008 general election campaign, Obama made Dennis Ross, the Democratic Mideast hand most trusted by the “pro-Israel” right, his main spokesman on the issue rather than Daniel Kurtzer, who had endorsed Obama earlier but whose frank opposition to settlement growth as ambassador to Israel had made him less trusted in Jewish establishment circles. Or consider the Obama campaign’s treatment of former Clinton-administration national-security staffer Rob Malley. After leaving office, Malley had co-written a controversial essay arguing that Yasser Arafat was not solely to blame for the failure of the 2000 Camp David peace talks and met (as a private citizen) with representatives of Hamas. In response, an Obama campaign aide privately pledged that Malley would not receive an administration job, and the campaign distributed an article by my old TNR boss Marty Peretz that praised Obama while calling Malley “a rabid hater of Israel.” Malley discovered what the campaign had done when the mass email containing Peretz’s article arrived in his inbox. 

This pattern of surrounding himself with advisers more cautious than himself continued once Obama took office. He made Hillary Clinton—the woman whose foreign-policy views he had derided as cautious and conventional during the campaign—his secretary of state. As national-security advisor he chose James Jones, a man who had twice been offered the job of deputy secretary of state in the Bush administration. At the Pentagon he kept on the Bush administration’s Robert Gates. A month into Obama’s presidency, when Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair selected Chas Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council, Freeman quickly came under attack, largely for a series of comments about Israeli policy that, while harshly critical, would not have been out of place in Haaretz. After two weeks without any show of support from the White House, Freeman withdrew his nomination. 

Partly as a result of these personnel decisions, Obama’s foreign policy—while often operationally skillful—has left unchallenged many of the assumptions made “mainstream” by George W. Bush. Obama has never questioned Bush’s insistence that Iran cannot be deterred, even though deterrence was crucial to America’s strategy against China and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He has abandoned his promise to close Guantánamo Bay. And during the debate over the Afghan surge, when Obama grew skeptical of David Petraeus’s push for 40,000 new troops, his top cabinet secretaries constrained rather than encouraged his heretical thoughts. In his book Obama’s Wars, Bob Woodward reports that Hillary Clinton, along with Robert Gates, played a key role in “diminishing the president’s running room. She had reduced his cover for any decision with significantly fewer troops.” 

All of which makes the Hagel pick so important. Unlike John Kerry, whose political caution has smoothed the way for a virtually uncontested secretary-of-state nomination, Hagel says in public what others only say in private. In his 2005 book, The Much Too Promised Land, former Clinton administration Middle East hand Aaron Miller notes that “of all my conversations [about the Israel debate in Congress], the one with Hagel stands apart for its honesty and clarity.” That’s because when Hagel told Miller that “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here,” he was saying the same thing that people who work in Congress and the executive branch say all the time. As Thomas Friedman has noted, “I am certain that the vast majority of U.S. senators and policy makers quietly believe exactly what Hagel believes on Israel.” But the operative word is quietly. I’ve also heard many government officials, some of them Jewish, say things similar to what Hagel is now being flayed for having told Miller. The difference is that those other officials first confirmed that they were speaking off the record. One even lowered his voice and closed the door. 

Hagel’s uncommon honesty isn’t restricted to Israel. Among the statements that critics now decry is Hagel’s 2007 declaration that “People say we’re not fighting for oil [in Iraq]. Of course we are.” In The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol calls Hagel’s statement “vulgar and disgusting.” What Kristol doesn’t note is that the same article that quotes Hagel also quotes noted radical Alan Greenspan saying virtually the same thing. The difference: Greenspan said it in his memoir, published once he was safely retired from government service. 

As John Judis notes, Hagel was considered a plausible Republican presidential candidate in 2008 until his blunt criticism of the Bush administration’s Iraq policies ended his career in the GOP. He is, therefore, one of the very few public figures in recent memory—Joe Lieberman, whose blunt support for the Bush administration’s Iraq policies ended his career in the Democratic Party, is another—to have forfeited a national role in his political party because of his policy views. In the process, Hagel has incurred the wrath of the same hawkish “pro-Israel” forces whose influence he was rash enough to acknowledge. He has done, in short, exactly what people who aspire to jobs like secretary of defense in Democratic administrations learn not to do. If Barack Obama nominates him anyway, it will be the greatest blow in years to the culture of timidity that dominates the Democratic foreign-policy class. As one former Obama administration official puts it, “Before, when 25-year-olds came to me for career advice, I would tell them, ‘You should be very circumspect, very cautious.’ After Hagel, I would say it’s OK to have strong, even divisive opinions.” 

Barack Obama has been commander in chief for nearly four years, but in important ways, the Obama era in American foreign policy has not yet begun. It will begin when Democrats express their foreign-policy views as fearlessly as do their Republican counterparts and when those Republican counterparts can no longer impose their historical amnesia about the catastrophes of the last 10 years on public debate. It will begin when the American right can no longer marginalize public officials with whom it disagrees about Iran by hurling charges of anti-Semitism with a promiscuity that would make Al Sharpton blush. It will begin when Obama surrounds himself with advisers more interested in shifting the foreign-policy “mainstream” than parroting it. It will begin when Obama declares independence from the Bush-era assumptions that have so far constrained his foreign policy. And with luck, we will one day look back upon Chuck Hagel’s nomination as the day it did.

Please read the full story on "Why Chuck Hagel Matters" at the Daily Beast.  It is an eye opener.

Sometimes you have to take the blinders off and see the real world not the world we have been fed by the politicians and the military/industrial complex for years.  I have been trying to figure out what type of Republican I am and can now say "Eisenhower" Republican fits me perfectly.  He was my hero growing up and still is today.  Dwight Eisenhower stood for the American people of all races just not whites and realized what war could do to a Nation and its youth.  President Kennedy was following in the footsteps of Eisenhower not to escalate the troops in Vietnam when he was assassinated.  What would have happened to this Country if JFK had lived and LBJ had never been President?  We will never know, but would bet thousands of American families would not have lost loved ones in Vietnam.

We cannot make the same mistake of Vietnam and Iraq by going into war with Iran or Syria where we have no business except it will make defense contractors wealthy by allowing the hawks to run the Government and give out those huge defense contracts.   Can you say Halliburton?

Time to see what President Obama does with his own appointees.  I am willing to give him a chance and so should every American IMHO.