Foreign policy neoconservatives are circling around Chuck Hagel. They’re desperate to block the former Nebraska senator from becoming Secretary of Defense because, as a Republican, he could help revive the traditional GOP foreign policy realism shattered by 9/11. They insist the Vietnam vet with two Purple Hearts would be weak on Iran, abandon Israel and gut our military.
Hagel's opponents need at least five Democratic senators' nay votes, plus one for every Republican who supports him. So they’re spinning a narrative of united Republican opposition, while also playing to the Left. That requires making the fight seem broader than foreign policy.
Enter the Log Cabin Republicans. The nation's largest gay conservative group ran a full-page New York Times ad just before New Year's calling Hagel "Wrong on Gay Rights. Wrong on Iran. Wrong on Israel." The ad alludes to comments Hagel made in 1998 about President Clinton's nomination of the nation's first openly gay ambassador (to Luxembourg). Hagel said philanthropist James Hormel's being "openly, aggressively gay" would be an "inhibiting factor" to "do an effective job." (Hagel had already voted for Hormel in committee.)
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