My Pick for Sec Def

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/03/081103fa_fact_bruck?printable=true

I've totally loved Chuck Hagel since he started calling out his party and the military adminstration for their handling of Iraq. You gotta respect a man who bucks the republican party admist their poor judgement and hiding of secrets. And he's good-looking. Which TOTALLY qualifies him.

Best quote (and why I thought McCain would have stayed on the straight and narrow through his campaign -- since they are good friends and he seemed to agree at the time).

Hagel is quoted as saying, “The most dangerous element of our political future in this country is candidates who debase and degrade the political process by straight-out lies and misleading spots on television. It’s a cancer to our system.” Hagel told me that McCain came to his office to talk to him about the article and said, “You know, I’m really proud of you for doing that. Not many people would have done it.”

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Nevertheless, he and McCain have remained friends, Hagel told me in a series of interviews over the past several months. “That’s the problem with Washington, quite frankly—if you disagree with somebody, you should dislike them, too,” said Hagel, who is sixty-two and has white hair, a worn, ruggedly handsome face, and a forthright manner. “It’s hard, it seems, for some people to comprehend how John and I can be on such different paths on something so important, and still fundamentally have a relationship that’s pretty deep.”

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For Hagel, almost as disturbing as Palin’s lack of experience is her willingness—in disparaging remarks about Joe Biden’s long Senate career, for example—to belittle the notion that experience is important. “There’s no question, she knows her market,” Hagel said. “She knows her audience, and she’s going right after them. And I’ll tell you why that’s dangerous. It’s dangerous because you don’t want to define down the standards in any institution, ever, in life. You want to always strive to define standards up. If you start defining standards down—‘Well, I don’t have a big education, I don’t have experience’—yes, there’s a point to be made that not all the smartest people come out of Yale or Harvard. But to intentionally define down in some kind of wild populism, that those things don’t count in a complicated, dangerous world—that’s dangerous in itself.

“There was a political party in this country called the Know-Nothings,” he continued. “And we’re getting on the fringe of that, with these one-issue voters—pro-choice or pro-life. Important issue, I know that. But, my goodness. The world is blowing up everywhere, and I just don’t think that is a responsible way to see the world, on that one issue. And, interestingly enough, that is one issue that stopped John McCain from picking one of the people he really wanted, Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge”—the Independent senator from Connecticut and the Republican former governor of Pennsylvania. (Both men are pro-choice.)