The most surprising criticism that I’ve heard against Chuck Hagel as potential Secretary of Defense is that he is to the left of President Obama on the issues of foreign affairs. I don’t even know that this is true. I suspect it is just that Hagel is to the left of the president in some ways and that is enough to label him a flaming liberal. But here’s my question: isn’t it the president’s decision as to whether Hagel is too far to the left of him? Because that is the issue. The assumption of this line of argument is that the president is the most liberal man that we can stomach. Unless he chooses to work with people who are more conservative than he is, it is unacceptable.

Matthew Duss writes over at Salon (originally, The American Prospect), Why Are Neocons So Down on Chuck Hagel? He says there are two reasons. First, he says that the neocons want to stop all talk of approaching the Israel-Palestine issue anyway but as we always have. That is: unsuccessfully.

More important that this (and the repellent claim that Hagel is antisemitic), the real issue is that neocons don’t like anyone who claims that the United States should be going to war anywhere and everywhere. And nowhere is more important than Iran. Most recently, John Cornyn has claimed that he will block Hagel’s nomination because Hagel said he wouldn’t put “everything” on the table regarding Iran. Now it turns out that Hagel said no such thing. So this is more random smearing in this very troubling campaign against him. But I have to ask: shouldn’t some things be taken off the table? Isn’t it perhaps a bad idea to start a nuclear war in the name of stopping Iran from maybe trying to get nuclear weapons? Wouldn’t doing that just cause a nuclear arms race in that region of the world?

In the end, I’m not sold on Hagel. There are things I like about him and things I don’t like. But I suspect he would be fairly good at the job. The main thing, as Duss points out, is that we ought to be able to consider him. We certainly shouldn’t disqualify him based upon the people who brought us the worst foreign policy decade in my lifetime.

Several people sent me to the most informative tweet I have ever seen. Marco Rubio explains the Republican Party in two short sentences: Republicans don’t want to cut Social Security. And by the way, the Democrats do.

There is something to be said for this. It’s true: the Republicans aren’t for cutting Social Security. Or saving Social Security. Or leaving it alone. Or, frankly, not leaving it alone. The Republican Party stands for whatever you believe in. And the Democrats are against it.

Really.

Report that #GOP insisting on changes to social security as part of #fiscalcliff false.BTW those changes are supported by @barackobama.

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) December 30, 2012

BTW Marco Rubio is a dick.

Update (30 December 2012 5:52 pm)

Ezra Klein has a slightly different take on this same tweet:

I think the problem is a little more fundamental than this. But he is right about the specifics.

People are wondering about the Fiscal Cliff deal. If Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid can’t agree on anything, Reid will propose a “little budget deal.” This will consist of only tax cuts for incomes under $250,000 and an extension of unemployment benefits. If this happens, the proposal would probably win majorities in both houses of Congress. The problem is that they probably won’t get to vote. There are two questions: will McConnell filibuster in the Senate? Will Boehner allow a vote in the House?

I think the answer to the second question is easy. Boehner will not allow any vote until he is re-elected Speaker of the House. Even after that, I’m not sure. But I suspect there will be so much pressure from the one true Republican consistency (the super rich), that eventually he will cave.

The first question is more interesting. Given that Boehner is not going to allow a vote tomorrow, why should McConnell care if he allows a vote in the Senate? This is a real test to see just how revolutionary the Republicans have become. The strategy is very clear here. The Republicans lose nothing by allowing a vote. But they lose something very big if they don’t allow a vote.

By filibustering now, they will drive home to any wavering Democrats that the Republican Party cannot be counted on to allow the government to run. That vote is just a couple of days away. That also means that if there is no filibuster, wavering Democrats will possibly think that that Republicans aren’t that bad after all. See: they allowed a vote on the Fiscal Cliff deal!

Now, let’s be clear: the Democrats should not fall for this move. Allowing a vote on this deal will not mean that Republicans will be reasonable from here on. There is no question: they will not be reasonable. But if McConnell is not willing to gain a huge advantage without any cost, then it means that the Republican Party is even more committed to its revolutionary agenda than I had feared.

This is a defining moment.

I remember reading an introduction to a Calvin and Hobbes collection. It was by Charles Schulz, and he was arguing that what really mattered in a comic was that it was funny to look at. At that time, I disagreed. Actually, I didn’t really even understand. But since then, I have definitely learned. The primary reason I like Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County is because of how they look.

As a result, I’ve never been that fond of Dilbert, even though it is very well written. In fact, it is only because it is so well written that it transcends the artwork. Scott Adams is a very funny and insightful guy. And he was in fine form today.

Dogbert is a great character. He is your typical Bugs Bunny archetype. Things always work out well for him. He flies by the seat of his pants and that works. But in the process, he highlights of the absurdity of the world with his anarchism:

It is perhaps a little late to be discussing the “I did build that!” crowd, but they are still around. I do disagree with one part of this: he didn’t work nearly as hard as his gardener. Whenever I hear business owners talk about how hard they work, it reminds me of professional musicians complaining about all their hard work. I’m not saying that their work isn’t hard. But there is a big difference between doing work you hate for little money and doing work you love for lots of money. So I wish these people would just shut up.

I might note that I work very hard at my writing. I sit in front of a computer screen about 12 hours per day. I’ve started to gain weight because of my lack of exercise. Boo fucking hoo!

But I did write this.

Wonk Blog presented their second annual Wonky Awards on Friday. I like the idea of it. I appreciate policy wonks a great deal. And I heartily agree with many of the awards. But others? In particular, the top two awards are ridiculous.

First let’s look at some of the well picked awards. They named The Tax Policy Center “Think Tank of the Year.” The TPC does a lot of good work, but they were particularly important this year because they showed that Romney’s tax plan was bunk. There were just not enough loopholes in the tax code to pay for his $5 trillion tax cut and extra $2 trillion military spending.

Wonk Blog also named It’s Even Worse Than It Looks as “Book of the Year.” This is welcome because—What a surprise!—the book has received very little attention because it doesn’t pretend that the problems in Washington are equally the fault of the Democrats and Republicans. Wonk Blog also gives some much needed attention to software patents, even though the entire intellectual property system is broken.

Perhaps the best award was, “Graph of the Year.” For this, they presented the inflation-adjusted interest rate on long-term US treasury bonds. They could have used this last year, but it is particularly interesting this year. For the second half of 2012, investors have been paying the federal government to hold on to their money. Yet all we hear about is how debt is killing us. Amazing.

Many of the awards are just silly. What, for example, is “Rising Star Central Banker of the Year”? Or: “Most Confusing Policy Metaphor of the Year”? And perhaps worst of all: “Most Unfortunate YouTube Video Including a Figure From the Policy World”? I seriously doubt that we will see these next year. We certainly didn’t see them last year. Of course, there are at least two awards that were repeated that were similarly silly, at least regarding their winners this year. The first was “Most Worthwhile Canadian Initiative,” which is inexplicably not an initiative but a man. Second was “Least Worthwhile Canadian Initiative,” which was the NHL lockout. But at least the gang at Wonk Blog is trying.

And now we get to the major awards. The second worst award this year was “Policymaker of the Year.” This was awarded to ECB head Mario Draghi. I will admit that Draghi has done a much better job than Jean-Claude Trichet. But policymaker of the year? I don’t think so. The ECB is still doing the bare minimum required. The main difference now is that even more needs to be done. And I fully expect that in the next year there will be another crisis that will require yet another patch.

But by far the worst award this year wasn’t even on offer last year: “Wonk of the Year.” And the award goes to—Wait for it!—Grover Norquist. I think the folks at Wonk Blog know they are on thin ice here, because they start the discussion of this award by defining “wonk”:

But this is not what Norquist does. He may be preoccupied with taxes, but not the details. A wonk doesn’t decide that all taxes are bad. That is the decision of an ideologue. And that makes Norquist the opposite of a wonk: he isn’t interested in the data or the facts; he just wants to cut taxes because he wants to destroy the government, “My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Apart of this, I would think that Norquist would have been tossed out of contention for “Wonk of the Year” due to his very public repudiation of his absolutist tax pledge. Especially after it turned out that some members of the House were even more serious about it than he is. But instead, Wonk Blog just glosses over this epic failure by claiming, “Republicans are beginning to defect from Norquist’s pledge, but by setting the terms of the debate around such an extreme anti-tax position, Norquist is winning even as he’s losing.”

Look: I understand how this stuff works. Most of the Wonky awards were already set before Norquist recanted and came to be seen as the paper tiger he always was. But Wonk Blog could have thrown the whole category out—as I said, it didn’t exist last year. Or they could have given it to any number of real wonks. I suspect they kept it in just to get some attention. After all, “Wonk of the Year” is the first thing in the article. Also: I wouldn’t have written about this if Norquist hadn’t been in the list. Still, it looks like they failed; mostly, no one seems to really care about this bit of traffic trolling. If people are bothered by any award, it seems to be Mario Draghi winning “Policymaker of the Year.”

If Wonk Blog wants to make these awards a real thing, they need to be smarter about it. They ought to pick 5-7 standard awards and give them out each year. And they need to be serious about it and not give out awards to people like Norquist and the NHL. The only real use of such awards is to get really wonky. And they certainly didn’t succeed at that this year.