A Different Take on Chuck Hagel
Over at American Thinker is a piece by a fellow named Ed Timperlake, which not only presents an insider’s supportive view of Chuck Hagel, but describes a procedural tactic that can be employed by Senate Republicans, with the support of Chuck Hagel, to add some transparency to the administration’s nomination of a new SecDef.
Apparently Chuck Hagel was once considered to be a friend of the veteran community. I was unaware that, prior to becoming a senator, he had resigned his position as a VA official in protest against policies he thought harmful to veterans. Timperlake is Naval Academy, a former Marine fighter pilot and disabled vet who worked many years in DoD and is now a defense industry expert, author and pundit. His biography can be found here.
As soon as I read this piece, I thought it would be grist for this grinding mill we call This Ain’t Hell. Please go to American Thinker and read this piece then offer your opinions here.
Category: Politics
As I’ve said before, there was a time when Hagel was an honorable man. He helped the 82nd Airborne Division Association get National Airborne Day permanent recognition after Strom Thurmond died. But, he went to shit soon after that. His performance at his confirmation hearing was dreary and he never should have been confirmed because of that. The fact that he garnered support from VoteVets demonstrates how far he went to the Dark Side. If I’m not mistaken he even sat on their board after he retired from the Senate. I never knew that he had resigned from the VA’s leadership, and good on him for that. But, the way that he’s been in the last decade or so is unforgivable.
POtuS ∅bama should have just stuck w/ Hagel. He got so butthurt by Hagel pushing back on ISIS strategy & Gitmo prisoner releases…not being the total yes man. Now you have an embarrassing situation where there are no takers for SECDEF post & Hagel is left on the job as a lame duck.
Hagel was SECDEF for one reason- to oversee the defunding of the US military per Barry’s orders. This has mostly been accomplished. Wandering off the plantation over GITMO releases and the real ISIS threat- that is, disagreeing with Susan Rice- sealed the deal and out he goes. Problem is, this administration is so toxic no one wants a bite of the shit sammich Barry is offering, and who can blame them? Not me. Now what, Barry?
Hey, I’ll take the job. I could use the cash (can’t we all?) and I would love to get into a bitch-slapping contest with VJ and whatserface.
Which is pre-zackly why you’ll never get the nod, Ex. But if you do I get to hold the cam-corder, deal?
😉
Absolutely, and we will set it up on YouTube, not on the mainline lamestream.
I’d pay money to see that. If we did pay per view, I bet we could get enough to fund the military for the last 2 years of King Barry.
Me, too, and that’s a good idea.
For some reason, the article won’t come up for me. That said, here’s what I do know about dumbass, other than him being unable to understand the concept of a pie chart. When the debate was going on about sequestration, DNI Clapper told Congress that furloughing national security workers, such as intelligence analysts, case officers, etc. was dangerous and not conducive to national security. He stood up for the IC. DIA is funded 30/70 by MIP/NIP funds. That means 30 percent of its funding comes from DOD, and 70 percent comes from ODNI. At that time, DIA had made enough budget cuts to meet its sequestration bill, but Hagel, instead of ensuring that intel staff continued to do their jobs, basically said that 1) he had no intention of allowing Clapper to dictate his policy and 2) even though DIA had met its sequestration bill via budget cuts, the 30 percent of people funded by MIP would be furloughed anyway, because “we’re all in this together.” He didn’t fight for his department. He insisted on furloughing DOD employees, even those in agencies that had already made the cuts. And he hobbled the agency, by furloughing intelligence analysts and other folks who were vital to national security. He INSISTED on furloughs. This is what I know, because I lived through this garbage. And no, I’m not just bitter because of furloughs. I’m pissed he didn’t have the ability and foresight to make the cuts necessary not to furlough DOD staff, and then insisted on spreading the pain around, even though in some agencies, this wasn’t even a necessity. Oh, and by the way – for someone like me who was the ONLY analyst working the AO I was working, I was expected to still produce what was needed, because “The Secretary needs…” We had people scrambling, trying to provide that dumb asshole with everything he needed prior to bilats. The stress level was through the roof. Meanwhile, the agency felt it necessary to create two SES positions out of one Deputy DI slot, because SES’s needed a place to be. The… Read more »
Nicki, the link’s working fine for me. Just go to AmericanThinker.com and it’s down the right side of the page.
The most interesting aspect of the article is not whether Hagel is a good guy or not but the strategy by which Hagel could help redeem himself with veterans and Republicans by screwing up Obama’s plans to replace him with a sleazebag party loyalist.
OK – let me try it that way. All it’s doing is showing an ad and no text.
I don’t know Hagel on a personal level. I do know he never stood up for DOD, and is dumber than a box of hammers.
Let me try again via the path you suggested.
Nope. Nada. No text at all. Just an irritating pop tarts ad.
Sorry, it’s still working fine for me. Anybody out there got any suggestions for Nicki?
Was able to pull up the guy’s biography just fine. But the essay is nothing but a blank page. I’m using Google Chrome. Could it be that for whatever reason?
Might be. Also, sometimes some sites won’t load without cookies enabled, or it could be another security setting.
Tried Firefox. No-go.
Oh well.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/11/chuck_hagel_is_not_yet_gone_and_will_not_be_forgotten.html
Any better?
Gu was hired as a stooge and fulfilled the position gratefully until he was eventually thrown under the bus like all good stooges under the Bammy adminstration. If your a personal pal of the man that’s nice and all but give me a break with that circle jerk article. How are you going to be so principled and upstanding decades before then turn into super douche proceeding over the military’s destruction.
The bit in 2013 where Hussein was blocking veterans and citizens from accessing their memorials and the non outrage that occurred from the supposed good guy veteran advocates in the adminstration said it all.
Go pound sand, Chuck.
People can change for the worse (John Murtha, anyone?), and it seems that Hagel did, too.
Perhaps he could redeem himself with the veteran community. He’s going to have to work his fourth point of contact off, and it still won’t be easy, because now, his whole core value system has lost all credibility, IMO.
What about Mike Mullen? http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/oviilh/mike-mullen
He is a Fly Fisherman after all and I have me him and had a great chat last year. Talked with Colbert at UVA Graduation before meeting the Admiral…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNkxQKGex28
I ran HH at that gig
I respect Hagel’s previous service, but what he has become is a shame.
Also, not holding my breath for the following to happen, but we’ll see:
“A senator can wait until QFR are submitted for the record, probably heavily edited by White House National Security Council, and then ask for the SecDef’s draft as it left his desk. (I am sure Chuck will not object.) And then compare the documents: POW!”
Saying Hegel left the VA in protest is like saying the Ferguson looters had Mike Brown’s mom in their hearts as they ran off with a flat screen and a case of 40s. The place to fight the good fight in protest is the public eye- not run to the private sector for 6+ figures.
Hagel ran when the volume of defoliant claims were just coming to surface. He had the access as deputy to challenge the current VA director. Running from Nimmo was the act of a man too concerned with his future aspirations to stick out his neck for his brothers.
This revisionism is horseshit.
With his first line, the writer of the article signals that his is a puff piece: “Chuck Hagel is a friend and a man I truly admire.” So, impartiality is not to be expected. And he doesn’t disappoint. But the cold, hard facts are that Hagel is a politician. It has always been so with him. From 1971-1977 he was a congressional staffer. From there, it was cash-in time, working for three years as a Firestone lobbyist. Then he was an organizer for Reagan’s campaign. That’s how he came to be appointed to the VA job, one which he left, ostensibly as a matter of principle. That was in 1982. He could have stayed around and attempted to effect some change but he had other plans. His boss, Nimmo, a WW II aviator with multiple combat missions who was shot down, lasted less than two years on the job and needed no help from Hagel to resign under pressure. Also in 1982, Hagel resigned from his marriage but did work through his job and marriage resignations to become the Deputy Commissioner General of World’s Fair (TN)and co-found a new company. You know the rest: millionaire, Senator, and Secretary of Defense for the worst president in US history. So, the bottom line for me is that Timperlake’s piece is, as he promised, a friendly and admiring few words about his buddy.