Don't Believe What Today's GOP Says About the Foreign Policy "Mainstream"

• John Judis
• January 10, 2013 | http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/111777/dont-believe-what-republicans-say-about-the-foreign-policy-mainstream#

When Barack Obama nominated former Senator Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense, I assume that he knew what he was getting into. The debate over Hagel’s nomination won’t be about whether he is qualified to run the Pentagon and to negotiate budgets with Congress, but about Hagel’s views on Israel and Iran. Initially, some of Hagel’s critics charged that he was an anti-Semite. But these charges rightfully met with derision. Hagel’s principal critics in the Senate have adopted a different line: this his views are “out of the mainstream.”