I like Barney Frank a lot but I’d rather have Deval Patrick nominate a Democrat who will start campaigning the second they’re nominated and not quit until they beat Scott Brown. Barney’s not that guy, and if you need more proof that the Massachusetts Senate seat is not a gimme, remember that a top-notch candidate, Warren, spent $40+ million to beat Brown in a nasty race, and that a mediocre candidate lost to him. Do any of you Massachusetts residents have a suggestion for someone who can beat Brown?
I also don’t care if Obama nominates Chuck Hagel, Michele Flournoy or a trained circus dog for Secretary of Defense as long as whomever he nominates is on board with major defense cuts, and will advocate for them. But that’s not going to happen so I guess the best we can get is either a Republican who isn’t going to completely genuflect before Israel (Hagel) or a hawk with a D after her name (Flournoy). I sure don’t see the point in Obama or anyone else expending energy to defend or support Hagel. Yeah, it’s maddening that he’s getting mau-maued for treating Israel like something other than our 51st and most important state, but it’s not like the guy is going to be a radical Progressive change agent in the Pentagon.
(BTW, here’s a bit about Flournoy:
Michelle Flournoy, the former under secretary of Defense who is also a leading candidate to replace the soon-to-depart Leon Panetta, is also somewhat haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam, by her own account, but in a very different way than Hagel. Though far too young (she turned 52 on Friday) to have served there with the 66-year-old Hagel, Flournoy warned in a speech this week that military planners might still be too “risk-averse” because of the Vietnam experience. She said the military was endangered by a new “Vietnam syndrome” in which planners might seek to avoid the lessons of counterinsurgency and guerrilla warfare simply because the last decade of this kind of conflict has been so costly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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