BRIT HUME: The only thing I can think of is that he believes that Hagel is a kind of maverick, would not drink the kool-aid as the White House may see it on Pentagon, military spending and so on. That he would be a counterforce over there and not an advocate for the armed forces in a way that even Leon Panetta has become.
You know, the warnings that we're hearing, for example, about the affect of the sequester, so-called, on the Pentagon, the dire warnings, have come from Panetta, not from the White House you'll notice. The President isn't going around warning about that, Leon Panetta is.
So, I think that that's the reason because otherwise, it is it a very peculiar choice. [A] highly controversial guy, really not a particularly distinguished record in the Senate, or really anywhere else. And I'm not suggesting that he didn't fight valiantly when he was himself a soldier, I'm not suggesting that. But he's an odd guy, there is this tinge of suspicion about his views on Israel, which politically is very dangerous and problematic.
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