Your reasons for a Hagel Presidency (Part 6)

Today we continue in the series on "Why do you want Chuck Hagel to be our next President?" Please feel free email in your responses to this question. This is another of the answers posted over at the Chuck Hagel Google Group.

I concur with mbbar, particularly in regard to foreign policy. Senator Hagel, like his friend Colin Powell, is an internationalist and does not view organisations like the UN and NATO as being a hinderance at best, but rather as institutions, vital not only to the well being of our friends and allies, but integral to world order, peace and stability.

In regards to Citizen rights/privacy, Senator Hagel recently came at loggerheads with the President over a unilateral decision to abrogate a 1978 law prohibiting wiretapping, which the President has declared outdated and irrelevant. This represents a dangerous trend that students of Constitutional Law call Unitary Executive Theory, meaning that the Legislative and Judicial branches have limited ability to counteract the powers of the presidency.

Furthermore, Senator Hagel is one of the few voices of true Jeffersonian democracy, and by that I mean that Government should be open to criticism and scrutiny, and to participate in this is not unpatriotic. Perhaps the best example of how he embodies this is when he remarked, "I made an oath to my country and the constitution, I did not make an oath to my party or my president."

Despite the New York Times naming Senator Hagel as a Republican Loner, this is very much not the case. He has a pro business, pro free trade, and pro life voting record, and has drawn favorable ratings from the chamber of commerce and pro life groups. Perhaps he is far more in tune with the principles of the party of Teddy Roosevelt and Abe Lincoln than most of his peers.

Thanks for the post!