AP Photo

President Obama was reelected for many reasons, but skepticism/hostility to Israel was not one of them. To the extent that the Hagel nomination expressed the president’s exasperation with Benjamin Netanyahu or a determination to downgrade the long and close U.S.-Israel relationship — well, to that extent the nomination was a peevish mistake. Hagel right now is paying the price of that mistake by his disavowal of, and apology for, a decade of poorly considered remarks.