Mark Steyn: Hagel vs. too-big-to-fail Defense Department

So, why Hagel? Why now?

If the signature accomplishment of the president's first term was Obamacare (I'm using "signature accomplishment" in the Washington sense of "ruinously expensive bureaucratic sinkhole"), what would he be looking to pull off in his second (aside from the repeal of the 22nd Amendment)? Hagel isn't being nominated to the Department of Zionist and Homosexual Regulatory Oversight but to the Defense Department. Which he calls "bloated."

"The Pentagon," he said a year ago, "needs to be pared down." Unlike current Secretary Leon Panetta, who's strongly opposed to the mandated "sequestration" cuts to the defense budget, Hagel thinks they're merely a good start.

That's why Obama's offered him the gig.

Because Obamacare at home leads inevitably to Obamacuts abroad.

And this: You can have Euro-sized entitlements or a global military, but not both. What's easier to do if you're a democratic government that's made promises it can't afford – cut back on nanny-state lollipops, or shrug off thankless military commitments for which the electorate has minimal appetite?"