Senators Don't Make Good Foreign Policy Advisers
By Andrew Natsios (U.S. News & World Report)
The combination of former senators Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel, and John Kerry is not a recipe for success.
President Obama's nomination of former senator Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense and Sen. John Kerry for secretary of state completes his foreign policy team for his second term. Opinion-makers have had a field day with Chuck Hagel's views on foreign policy (and on gay rights issues), and less on John Kerry's world view, probably because so much had been written about the views, judgment, and style of president's reported first choice for secretary of state, Susan Rice. Washington's chattering class usually gives a pass to a runner up in a nomination fight after throwing the president's first nominee under the bus. But what seems to have been missed in the public discussion of the individual nominees is what the unified team will look like. The one common characteristic all four men share (Obama, Biden, Kerry, and Hagel) who will make, manage, and lead American foreign policy for the next four years: They are all former U.S. senators (three of whom ran for president).