In 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt faced a serious foreign policy problem. Europe was in the process of being subjugated by the Nazis but the American people did not want to get involved and the Republican Party (really the whole Conservative Coalition) led by Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio was strongly isolationist. So, FDR did something that turned out, in retrospect, to be quite wise. He appointed Henry Stimson to be his Secretary of War and Frank Knox to be his Secretary of Navy. Both men were prominent Republicans. Very prominent…
Stimson went on to serve as Secretary of War under President Taft from 1911 to 1913. Stimson used his experience in the Taft administration to help him advance in the Republican Party. In 1927, he was appointed by President Calvin Coolidge to be the Governor General of the Philippines. He served until 1929.
From 1929 to 1933, Stimson served as Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover.
As for Knox:
He served in Cuba with the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War…
An active Republican, he was that party’s nominee for vice president in the 1936 election, under Alf Landon.
Whatever you think of our early 20th-Century policies towards the Philippines and Cuba, it was a shrewd move on Roosevelt’s part to tap these representatives of the non-isolationist wing of the GOP. It gave him political cover for essential policies like the Lend-Lease Act. That’s why it doesn’t necessarily concern me to read that Barack Obama is considering Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska for the position of Secretary of Defense.
Obama is hoping to appoint cross-party figures to his cabinet such as Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator for Nebraska and an opponent of the Iraq war, and Richard Lugar, leader of the Republicans on the Senate foreign relations committee.
Senior advisers confirmed that Hagel, a highly decorated Vietnam war veteran and one of McCain’s closest friends in the Senate, was considered an ideal candidate for defence secretary. Some regard the outspoken Republican as a possible vice-presidential nominee although that might be regarded as a “stretch”.
Asked about his choice of cabinet last week, Obama told The Sunday Times: “Chuck Hagel is a great friend of mine and I respect him very much,” although he was wary of appearing as though he was already choosing the White House curtains.
Obama faces a different political atmosphere than FDR faced in 1940. While FDR had to persuade a wary nation of the necessity of combating fascism, Barack Obama will inherit a nation already at war. While FDR confronted a Republican Party that resisted foreign entanglements, Obama faces one that is insistent upon them. And that might not be Obama’s only problem. He may find his own party resistant to foreign policy decisions that are necessary, because of a general fatigue with American interventionism. For both of these reasons it may well benefit him to have a Republican Defense Secretary who is both supportive of an active American role in the world and of pulling our troops out of Iraq, come what may.
As a partisan, I don’t like the idea of putting Republicans in key cabinet positions. I didn’t like it when Bill Clinton tapped the moderate Republican Senator William Cohen of Maine to be his Defense Secretary. But Cohen’s presence was reassuring when, during the l’affaire Lewinsky, Clinton decided to bomb Afghanistan and the Sudan. Whatever the wisdom of those strikes, it was damaging to hear Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott accuse the president of ‘wagging the dog’. Secretary Cohen’s strong defense of the President’s actions put a quick end to such conspiracy theories.
I would not recommend Chuck Hagel for the position of Secretary of Defense and I will be mildly perturbed if he gets the appointment. But I can see definite advantages to such a move and we should remember our past. It would not be an unprecedented move.
After just reading a few shrieking, pearl-clutching pieces about this same TimesOnline.uk article that suggests that Obama is open to having – god forbid – Republicans serve in his administration, it sure is a relief to find you behaving rationally about all of it and providing some historical context.
Obama is trying to build a coalition of Democrats, Independents and yes, even some sensible Republicans. He’s not some Republican in disguise. He’s not a traitor to liberals. He’s being smart, that’s all.
I was just coming to say the same thing. BooMan, and Booman Tribune and many of its posters remain my island of sanity in a mostly insane world.
I agree entirely. I would not want a Republican, but I would understand if he chose one of them, and Hagel – despite the fact that he may well have goteen his Senate seat thanks to voting machines that he was part owner of – seems not to be the worst of the worst on the Republican side. He’s taken a brave stance against a few of the excesses of his party, and that’s something.
Lugar, okay, but I’d just as soon pass on Hagel. And I don’t think that there are many votes to be won with the promise of Hagel in the cabinet.
I think that the permanent government demands a Republican controlling the the DOD.
Why not just invite some vipers to sleep with him every night? Why not take up smoking while filling his gas tank?
Over the last 6 years how many articles have I read about all republican vote being unanimous, and how bad that they ALWAYS vote as a block.
They voted as a block on our present Attorney General, ALL the right wing judges, on the FISA votes, on EVERYTHING.
So let me say it;
THERE ARE NO ‘MODERATE’ REPUBLICANS! They are ALL wingnuts. As soon as he appointed ONE he would IMMEDIATELY be reporting ALL meetings to the Republican Caucus.
It would be the stupidest thing he could do, and would be a clear sign, right at the beginning, of a failed presidency.
Want proof? Watch Broder. As soon as Obama wins, Broder will have an editorial just like yours. And so will the WaPo.
We are doomed when even Boo suggests methods that ensure failure.
nalbar
He seems sane on the war. You’ve heard different?
Preempting “Wag the dog” responses to necessary interventions is a powerful argument for having an opposition figure at Defense. But I’m still very uneasy about what Obama’s new romance with Hagel and Lugar tells us about his basic instincts and outlook.
How does it match up with Obama’s boilerplate line about not just getting out of Iraq but getting out of the mentality that let it happen in the first place? I don’t see Hagel as someone who questions the basic assumptions of the invasion, rather than the incompetence of the occupation. Is there any reason he will resist the next campaign to get Obama to launch a criminal attack on some other non-enemy country? Or will he be one of the voices egging him on to “demonstrate America’s will and power”?
Statements like these are making it harder to put an optimistic spin on Obama’s idea of “reaching out” and the new nonpartisanship. How does bringing change square with floating the names of entrenched old rightwing warhorses as members of the cabinet?
For me, it isn’t even the possiblilty that he’d name Hagel or someone like him to Defense. It’s the fact that he would float this before the primaries are even over. Why does he think he needs to pacify the militarist right now, before the general election is even really underway? How much more will he give away when it is underway?
I voted for him and still have hopes that he has it in him to become one of our great presidents. But it seems like I’m starting to hear a lot of still-faint whispers from his campaign telling us “No We Can’t” on issues like Blackwater, gay marriage, health care, the military budget, and more. Maybe this is just part of building a new coalition, so I’ll do what I can to keep hope alive. Right now that’s a little more difficult than it was before.
Right now Obama needs to win both Texas and Ohio to give Hillary her knockout blow and get on with his battle against McCain. In order to do this – in these particular states – he NEEDS a fair amount of independent and Republican crossover votes. Sensible Republican men who are sick of Bush and their party right now will feel alot more comfortable voting for him if they hear stuff like this. Perhaps that is the motive.
we call it “triangulation”.
Obama has already co-authored legislation with Lugar. This is hardnly a “new romance.”
One of the big reasons I’m supporting Obama is that he sees Republicans as invididuals, some better than others. I fear for my party and my country when half of us think the other half are simply nuts.
I guess I fear more for my country when half of the population IS simply nuts. Since you are Real History, maybe you can set me straight on whether Hagel now complains about Iraq because it was wrong and bad from the start, or simply because it was incompetently carried out? I honestly don’t know, but suspect the latter. Is there anything in his history to suggest that he opposes the idea of “flexing our muscle” to ensure American hegemony worldwide?
McCain seems to be a nice guy, too, and co-authored legislation with the senator I think is the best we have. But I don’t want him anywhere near the White House because I think most of his other beliefs are, well, nuts for lack of a better term. Anyway like I said, I’m more bothered by Obama’s eagerness to “reach out” to Hagel for the Defense post now, before the general election is even started, than I am at the idea that a Hagel republican might eventually be named. I get the sinking feeling that we’ll soon watch him follow the route of pretty much every Dem president in my lifetime, and decide he doesn’t have to care what the real Democrats think, because they don’t have anywhere else to go.
I think honestly, that fear is justified.
The way the media is controlled, it’s impossible for a true leftist, a true progressive, to rise to national prominence.
That’s why I never supported Edwards. I knew he didn’t stand a chance in hell, if he was truly who he claimed to be. (I also didn’t support him because I never bought he WAS who he claimed to be, but that point was irrelevant in light of the other.)
I think Obama is the best candidate we have at this point in time. Does that make him a great man? Heck no. If he wants that label, he’ll have to prove himself, and I’m not planning to hold my breath on that one.
From what I’ve read, there was some subtlety regarding contractors in Iraq. I may be wrong, but my impression was that we didn’t have the personnel to get the troops out if we immediately got rid of the contractors. And secondly, there was a plan to bring non-military personnel into some sort of agency that would have more direct control over them.
so great that He can appoint cabinet members without the formality of an election? Would those applying to serve have to ask permission to touch the hem of His garment?
Be careful about counting your chickens. The election is still eight long months away.
Unlike most Obama supporters I’m pretty much reconciled to the fact that he’s going to disappoint most of us on most things.
If he must, I could live with Hagel as Sec. Defense but only because Hagel has been the only Republican that showed any common sense over the Iraq War and was willing to go on tv week after week and talk about it. Appointing Hagel would piss off the movement conservatives (which is good) while at the same time letting Obama rack up points with the moderate Republicans in the country that he needs for this grand coalition of his (which is also good if that grand coalition actually accomplishes some progressive goals).
But the State Department? If he wants to change the mindset that got us into the war in the first place he needs to not appoint a conservative to State.
Not to mention, appointing Republicans to more than one cabinet post will be taken as a statement that doesn’t think there are qualified Dems. Not that I think that would stop Obama. His run for the Presidency has never seemed to be about strengthening the Democratic Party, per se. Others (including me) see the opportunity of strengthening the party through him. But he’s never really been on the frontline about strengthening the party. He’s about building a coalition for … some vague concept of change. We all just have to trust that what he decides to do with it would be better than what Hillary could accomplish as president.
But in general I don’t have a problem with him thinking about Republicans on the cabinet.
I’ve been reading Nixon and Kissinger by Robert Dallek. It’s very instructive on many things, but the part on opening up to China and dentente with the Soviet Union is the most fascinating. It’s fascinating because their biggest problem was keeping the John Birchers from totally freaking out. Sometimes sound policy is the opposite of what your base wants and sometimes you can disarm the other party through things like including them in your cabinet.
In itself, this would be neutral. It comes with advantages and disadvantages. Knox and Stimson are rightly credited with doing an outstanding job during the war. They took their orders from Roosevelt, just as Hagel would take his orders from Obama.
On State, I totally agree with you.
Dallek’s RFK book was a mixed bag. I’d be cautious re taking his word on anything unless I confirmed what he was saying elsewhere. That’s not specific to your comment, that’s more of a general note. There are few historians I respect because most of them get large parts of history wrong!
Btw – David Kaiser has a book coming out on the Kennedy assassination that’s going to go with the CIA’s favorite fall-back conspiracy – that Oswald was the lone shooter, but that the conspiracy was the Mob. It’s so neat, and clean, and false.
I agree with you on Roosevelt, Knox and Stimson.
Of course the real issue isn’t that they take their orders from the President. The real issue is the effect of their advice on the President during the decision making process.
I’ve been reading Fateful Choices by Ian Kershaw in which he examines 10 important decisions taken in 1940-41 in the various countries involved in WWII. He looks at the individuals involved, the decision making structure, whether there were alternative decisions that could be made and whether those alternatives would have created a different result.
The two American decisions he looked at were (1) lend lease and (2) military escorts for merchant shipping.
In the decision making process Knox and Stimson pushed for action much quicker than Roosevelt was ready to move. Their advice affected Roosevelt, certainly (as did the advice of Ickes) but it was Roosevelt who made the decisions and determined the pacing. Roosevelt was comfortable with his decisions and he never outpaced public opinion. Although he did what he could to build public opinion towards those decisions.
One of the biggest jobs for the Dems in 2009 is going to be sweeping through the various federal agencies and getting rid of as many of the Rethug crooks as possible. The more Rethugs sitting at the head of departments and agencies the more impossible that job becomes.
De-Baathification can have some nasty unintended consequences…
BooMan-
I think this is wise, but I would leave military or foreign relations positions off the table. The GOP has screwed them up, Obama is campaigning on the GOP’s incompetence and poor judgment and we don’t need whispers that the Democrats need the GOP to solve those “problems”.
No, the next few years will see the need for major domestic reforms and rebuilding after a generation of Republican neglect. Two immediate areas will be Health Care and Fiscal policy.
Right now US manufacturing is crippled by the enormous health care “tax” factored into every unit made. This places US products at a disadvantage. The same for the huge deficit spending of the last Admin. in regard to the overall US economy.
I would suggest a Republican, either a political personage (state governor) or a CEO of a major corporation as Treasury Sec. Then he can credibly make the argument…,
“Its all fine and good for the Soviet style rigid ideologs in the DC village to demand purity in social theory, they are protected by their positions in think tanks and elected office. I have to deal in the real world. My real world experiences, like everyone else’s in America, tells me we have to have Universal Health Care to relieve the burden on US manufacturing and we have to pay our bills. If you don’t like what the Obama Admin has proposed, then make your own and the country can debate the solutions. But solutions are necessary. We no longer have the luxury of Norquist style fantasies.”
Lay it out and let the GOP be seen for what they are, Ivory Tower dreamers under contract to the wealthiest of Americans. Let the Democratic Party be what its always been and should be. The voice of the rest of US.
Ridge
BooMan has a point. It wouldn’t be unprecedented.
But it wouldn’t be smart at this time, either. After almost eight years of the most singularly partisan administration in the history of America at the helm, the Democrats should be making concessions?
No. Sorry BooMan, I have to disagree with you in the strongest possible way.
The empirical evidence is that any sort of centrist, coalition-building efforts by Obama…ANY…will be instantly corrupted into the same rancid “go along to get along” Broderism that got us INTO Iraq in the first place.
Even worse, the names that will be thrown around, namely Hagel, Specter, and Joe Fucking Lieberman can do some REAL damage if given half a chance.
Nope. We don’t need coalition building. We need people to fix the goddamn mess that Bush and his cronies caused. Republicans who voted in lockstep to rubber stamp the near-dictatorship we have now need not apply.
Obama says in almost every stump speech that he wants to bring people together, to end the raucous divisions that have plagued governing for the last two decades. So I’m not surprised he would say he’s going to have Republicans in his cabinest. But, I think there’s more to this than the unity theme.
Hillary is currently attacking him on national security so he drops the idea of using a couple of warhorses. Hagel and Lugar are Republicans but they are reasonable men with considerable experience in dealing with the Pentagon. The message Obama is giving is: I may not have this kind of experience but I’ll hire people who do. He’s also assuring Those Who Rule that he won’t be a pussy pacifist or isolationist. Name me a Democrat who can provide that reassurance; I can’t think of one that isn’t about to drop dead from old age.
Webb? Clark?
But it just occurred to me that maybe it does the Dem Party more good to put a Repub in such a position than a rightwing Dem.
Clark has already given his support and appeared at events with Hillary. Wasn’t Webb just elected a couple of years ago? It wouldn’t be good for him to give up Congress at this point. We need Democratic leaders in Virginia to solidify its blueness.
And another aspect: If Hagel takes the appointment, that’s another open seat that could be won by a Democrat in a special election.
And yes, I think I see what you might mean about putting a Repub in “such a position.” If something goes wrong, if the withdrawel goes badly, then Obama gets to blame the Repub and resign him. har.
If you’re going to have a Republican in the Cabinet, Hagel is the one to have. He belongs to the “realist” school of foreign policy, and on Iran and Israel/Palestine sounds a lot better than the GOP in general (and also better than those Democrats who parrot the neocon view of those parts of the world).
Putting a Republican at Defense on perpetuates the “Democrats can’t handle national security” frame.
Personally, I’d go for Lugar as Secretary of Agriculture. Given the problems with the currently proposed farm bill, and his authorship of the FRESH act, I think he would be easily convinced to take the job. After all, it’s going to become one of the most important cabinet positions in the next 8 years.
And if you don’t think it’s important, take a look at the farm bill that is currently being proposed, look at the FRESH act, and think about why Bush and the Iowa delegation is trying to make the current farm bill 10 years instead of the normal 5. What are they scared of?