Excerpt on Chuck Hagel
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): So, before we talk about this process of what's happening here, assuming these news reports today are right, Mark, and it is going to be Chuck Hagel the president nominates for Defense, good choice or no?
MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist: I think Chuck Hagel comes with enormous strength for this position at this time.
First of all, I mean, the question is always raised, you know, is anybody able to run the Defense Department? He was a co-founder of Vanguard Cellular Systems, ran -- was a president and CEO of USO worldwide.
But nobody -- Leon Panetta, who has been, I think by all measures, a great secretary of defense, or certainly an outstanding secretary of defense, had no similar background. But I think what Chuck Hagel brings to the administration, in addition to his great credibility from his own military experience in combat, where he saved his brother's life, and his brother saved him, after he requested to go to Vietnam, with orders -- he enlisted in the Army, Chuck Hagel, with orders to Germany.
He instead went, enlisted, insisted on going to Vietnam. And he said that there he vowed that he would make sure the United States did not go into wars without thought, reflection, with all the elements to it. And that has been the hallmark of his foreign policy. It's always dangerous, Judy, in this town to be right on matters in which the established authorities are wrong.
And the established authorities were absolutely wrong about the nuclear capability and capacity of Iraq. Chuck Hagel raised red flags about that at the time, even though he did vote for the war. But he publicly went on. And so I think there are questions about him, but he's a Republican. It's bipartisanship. He brings, I think, credibility as an enlisted man.
I just think that there's a lot of strengths to him, and, plus, he's an interesting and thoughtful man.
JUDY WOODRUFF: A lot of strengths, David?
DAVID BROOKS, New York Times columnist: I more or less agree with that.
I spent -- first -- on three subjects, first, his integrity. I spent a lot of time with him during the Iraq war, and I didn't agree with where he was going, but he followed his conscience, he followed the evidence, and he did the hardest thing that is -- one of the very hard things, which is to be unpopular in your workplace.
And he was extremely unpopular with Republicans and with Democrats because he was going off on his own course. And I thought he showed great courage and integrity, even though I may have disagreed with him. On the substance, he's a realist. He's -- more or less, his views are similar to Colin Powell's, I would say.
I think that puts him very much in the part of the foreign policy establishment. The idea that he is beyond the bounds on Israel or any other subject is simply not true. He's a realist. He may not agree with you if you want to do more humanitarian interventions, the way Susan Rice actually would have, but the cautious use of power, but a pretty muscular use of power.
As for the management, that to me is the open question. He did run a business. But we have had two great managers in a row. We had Bob Gates and Leon Panetta.
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