A paleocon perspective on Hagel’s critics

The Case Against Hagel Depends on Distortion and Ignorance of the Facts

Daniel Larison at The American Conservative about the neocon opposition to Hagel.

These Republicans “project” the “McCain perspective” because they share it or because they think it is politically necessary for others to think that they share it.

Why might the “McCain perspective” be unpopular at the moment?

Perhaps because it is a perspective that incessantly demands the waging of unnecessary wars in countries where the U.S. has nothing at stake?

Yes, that sounds about right.

Again.

On being 'mainstream'

Larison on Lindsey Graham and the like.

When Lindsey Graham complains that Hagel’s views are not “mainstream” enough, he is speaking for a very limited range of opinion within the political class and within his own party.

He is speaking on behalf of what Djerejian calls the “suffocating clutches of supine group-think.”

The closer that one looks, the more that one sees that Graham’s “mainstream” is very narrow and excludes large parts of his party’s own rank-and-file and a majority of the public on many issues.

When Graham lectures someone else for their supposedly marginal or “fringe” views, we are treated to the spectacle of an ideological hard-liner representing the view of a small faction who is trying to pretend that he represents the broad majority of Americans.

He represents no such thing.

Graham has hardly ever seen a foreign crisis or conflict in the last decade that he didn’t want the U.S. involved in, and he usually favors military action as a desirable way to handle major international issues.

Compared to Graham’s record, Hagel has been far more “mainstream” in his views in that Hagel’s views are the ones much more in sync with those of the public than Graham’s.

The bipartisan foreign policy consensus helped lead the country into the disaster of the Iraq war, but unlike Graham et al. most of its adherents were able to acknowledge that it had been a terrible mistake.

Graham represents the people who still refuse to acknowledge the reality of what their preferred policies did and would do do again if they are repeated.

We shouldn’t be interested in what such people consider “mainstream,” and we certainly shouldn’t take their advice on who should serve in important government positions.

He could be describing the people at NRO, The Weekly Standard, or Fox News.