Thursday, November 20, 2008

yet more League of Democracies hate

I missed this when it came out, but the New Yorker had a terrific profile of Chuck Hagel right before the election. (Incidentally, I can't think of a stronger case for Hagel as Secretary of State.)

Anyway, in the article, Hagel lights into McCain's League of Democracies proposal for all the reasons I've listed here and more. Best of all, he calls it "an interesting Book-of-the-Month Club."

Hagel: "Now, in John's League of Dmemocracies, does that mean Saudi Arabia is out? Does that mean our friend King Abdullah in Jordan is out? It would be only democracies. Well, we've got a lot of allies and relationships taht are pretty important to us, and to our interests, who would be out of that club. And the way John would probably see China and Russia, they wouldn't be in it, either. So it would be an interesting Book-of-the-Month Club. But in order to solve problems you've got to have all the players at the table. How are you going to fix the problems in Pakistan, Afghanistan-- the problems we've got with poverty, proliferation, terrorism , wars -- when the largest segments of society in the world today are not at the table?"

Hagel for Secretary of State! Would that Obama read this blog.

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