There are plenty of Democrats who would make fine, fine SecDef. Who needs a Republican for SecDef? Republican SecDefs have made the worst choices imaginable for our military in my lifetime. SecDef Cheney gutted the military during the first Bush Administration, remember. (look it up) SecDef Rumsfeld, well we know what *he* did. Totally destroyed it, is what *he* did. Whatever gives you the idea that Hagel would be preferable to, say Wesley Clark?

Bipartisanship - heh. Republicans have *nothing* to offer with respect to Iraq, climate changes, health care. Iraq? There's PROGRESS! Don't look at the data! Trust me! Health care? Save up for your own emergency appendectomy and your cancer treatment! Climate change? It's not happening! Don't look at the data! Gawwwwwwd will take care of it!

Pul-leeze! Bipartisan? (Huge eye roll)

Hagel would be a fine choice for Secretary of Defense.

Is the term "great defense credentials" the same as it was in the 80s: willing to pour loads of cash into military spending? By that same standard Charles Manson would be a great replacement for Alberto.

Wes Clark(Catholic) would be my first choice, but Hagel could be another choice worth considering; were we able to discover why he thinks the way the war was/is waged is wrong. Any war waged for the never ending Republican greed for political power and money is always wrong.

As a Catholic, I am wary of Catholics in government just as I would be wary of any evangelical fundie in gov't; can we all say George Bush.

Catholics would have to be able to prove that they can stand up to the Pope. Sen. Kerry could not and when the Pope threatened him with excommunication he folded.

Wes Clark(Catholic) is a good choice for SecDef but would that lead to his someday becoming Prez or Veep which would in turn give the Pope greater power over America thus moving the US to becoming a theocracy; and exactly how different is that from Islamic fundamentalism/theocracy, both cause death for religious reasons.

Catholic fundamentalism which comes from the top of the Catholic Church, the Pope, one man, would be a disaster for America, the world and the Catholic Church itself.

Can we all remember Galileo, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition(I don't want to be tortured, do you?) the alliance between Hitler and the Catholic Church (Reichskonkordat of 1933) and the Holocaust, and the Catholic Church involvement in American politics and policy beginning with Ronald Reagan.

Jesus Christ that liberal Jewish guy, forbade the merging of church and state(Render unto Caesar...) as does our now badly shredded US Constitution done by religious right wingers. And yet the present and previous Popes have chosen the mindset of 'moral relativism'(aka cherry picking) by choosing to ignore Christ and the US Constitution. Instead they have chosen to commit the sin of Pride(setting oneself equal to God in thought and deed).

Fundamentalist theocracies are dangerous/deadly to the 'family of man'. Do not be fooled or misled by the phony pro-life or family values rhetoric; it's all about political power.

Exactly what is pro-life/family values about killing Iraqi and Afghani families; and all for money and political power. Does anyone really think this US would be in Iraq if they had no oil. We surely don't need their sand.

Destabilizing the ME serves no one, except the oil companies and the war profiteers and Bushco and the Bush crime family. It surely doesn't benefit those people who live in the ME.

Re: War profiteering; remember USMC Gen. Smedley Butler and Eisenhowers warnings about war.

Also remember that the Bush family and a few other wealthy families who tried to get Butler to form a 500,000 member army to take over the WH and the US gov't. Butler turned them in, being th true patriot.

So we should all be very wary and very afraid of the aforementioned entities and forces.

Hagel would be a fine choice for Secretary of Defense.