Those who will wring their hands and fret about Hagel and his comments on one gay ambassador should read this response-
By AMBASSADOR MICHAEL GUEST | 1/6/13 9:09 PM EST
As an openly gay career Foreign Service officer and former ambassador, I find it disappointing that the debate over Chuck Hagel’s potential nomination as defense secretary has been sideswiped over — let’s face it — flatly intolerant comments Hagel made half a generation ago.
In 1998, James Hormel — a prominent philanthropist who served our country in many ways — became America’s first openly gay nominee to represent our country abroad as an ambassador.
Hagel opposed the nomination on grounds that Hormel is “aggressively gay” — for which Hagel has since apologized. Hormel has accepted that apology and seems willing to move on.
Why, then, should any of us freeze-frame Hagel’s comments 15 years ago — even as many of us, gay and straight, gladly acknowledge that America’s understanding of, and attitudes toward, sexual orientation and gender identity are changing rapidly?
Alan Dershowitz will testify(or wants to)regarding Hagel. I would like to point out that Dershowitz is a very, very strong supporter of the President. I have truly mixed emotions on Hagel. His past comments on Armenia and Israel both me, but they are not disqualifying for defense. Dershowitz is supposedly going to oppose Hagel on his Iranian stance. I don’t think Barney Frank who has expressed discontent with Hagel, or Congressmen Eliot Engel of New York are hardly flame-throwing conservatives. They’re not but truly fear Hagel at defense because of his expressed views on the Jewish/Israeli Lobby and on Israel and what that might suggest for the next four years regarding the US-Israeli defense relationship.
President Obama is looking, I believe, for the right guy to preside over a large reduction of defense spending.
Still, after seeing Hagel today, I do admire him and believe the President should get wide discretion unless there is something really off like substance abuse or something he could be blackmailed with. Hagel is a war hero with the same philosophy on security as the President. But, I would be upset if nobody asks him about what he was alleged to have said about the Armenian genocide, or why he would not sign a letter on behalf of Russian Jews after the fall of communism regarding anti-semitism. Again, these are not really policy questions, but they seem important from my vantage point.
In the final analysis, Hagel would not have been my pick, but I would vote to nominate him if that was my job. Rejections should occur in extreme cases and I see nothing like that here.
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