| Morning Jolt – December 19, 2012 By Jim Geraghty Here's your Wednesday Morning Jolt. Enjoy! Jim The Anti-Bagel Hagel Resolved: If confirmed, Chuck Hagel is going to make a lot of decisions that will irritate conservatives, Republicans, and friends of Israel. And maybe some folks outside those groups as well. The editors of the Washington Post surprise us this morning by opposing Hagel strongly for his views on defense cuts and Iran: "Mr. Hagel's stated positions on critical issues, ranging from defense spending to Iran, fall well to the left of those pursued by Mr. Obama during his first term — and place him near the fringe of the Senate that would be asked to confirm him . . . Mr. Hagel was similarly isolated in his views about Iran during his time in the Senate. He repeatedly voted against sanctions, opposing even those aimed at the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which at the time was orchestrating devastating bomb attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq. Mr. Hagel argued that direct negotiations, rather than sanctions, were the best means to alter Iran's behavior. The Obama administration offered diplomacy but has turned to tough sanctions as the only way to compel Iran to negotiate seriously." Bret Stephens kicked off the debate over Hagel in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday: Prejudice—like cooking, wine-tasting and other consummations—has an olfactory element. When Chuck Hagel, the former GOP senator from Nebraska who is now a front-runner to be the next secretary of Defense, carries on about how "the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here," the odor is especially ripe. Ripe because a "Jewish lobby," as far as I'm aware, doesn't exist. No lesser authorities on the subject than John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of "The Israel Lobby," have insisted the term Jewish lobby is "inaccurate and misleading, both because the [Israel] lobby includes non-Jews like Christian Zionists and because many Jewish Americans do not support the hard-line policies favored by its most powerful elements." Ripe because, whatever other political pressures Mr. Hagel might have had to endure during his years representing the Cornhusker state, winning over the state's Jewish voters—there are an estimated 6,100 Jewish Nebraskans in a state of 1.8 million people—was probably not a major political concern for Mr. Hagel compared to, say, the ethanol lobby. Alana Goodman: "Obama wouldn't just be burning his pro-Israel voters by nominating Hagel. The reputations of pro-Israel Democratic leaders–who took to the op-ed pages to reassure Jewish voters that, despite evidence to the contrary, Obama would get serious on Iran in a second term–are also riding on this." Why do I get the feeling that Obama would not lose much sleep about burning the reputations of pro-Israel Democratic leaders who reassured Jewish voters? Hey, guys look out for that bus! Jen Rubin sends along word from Abe Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, on the potential for Chuck Hagel to be picked as secretary of Defense: "Chuck Hagel would not be the first, second, or third choice for the American Jewish community's friends of Israel. His record relating to Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship is, at best, disturbing, and at worst, very troubling. The sentiments he's expressed about the Jewish lobby border on anti-Semitism in the genre of professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt and former president Jimmy Carter." For some readers, Hagel's invocation of the sinister-sounding "Jewish lobby" will be enough to urge Senate Republicans to strongly oppose his confirmation; for others, it will be his longtime interest in reaching out to unsavory characters in Hamas and the regime of Iran. Still, there's this nagging point: None of this is anything new, and neither a critical mass of American Jews nor the electorate as a whole seems to care. The Obama administration's persistent desire to hold talks with Iran was mentioned, time and again, in the campaigns of 2008 and 2012. Mitt Romney pointed out the spinning of Iran's centrifuges many times over the past four years again and often on the campaign trail. Hagel's been so pro-Obama that he was mentioned as a possible running mate in 2008, and has been discussed for the secretary of defense job every time it opened up under Obama. The likelihood that negotiations would not advance any U.S. interest, and instead amount to a propaganda win for regimes and groups hostile to us, is pretty clear. And yet America elected and reelected the guy proposing it. And he carried the Jewish vote by a healthy majority both times. How many times are we required to save the American people from the consequences of their actions, dragging them kicking and screaming from a bad outcome they keep trying to run toward? If only a small portion of the American Jewish community is willing to loudly oppose Hagel over his "Jewish lobby" comments, how vehemently should those of us outside that community fight a battle that we are quite likely to lose? Bit By Bit, a Formula for Disaster Is Illuminated I'll understand if you're sick of hearing about the Newtown massacre already, but with each passing day, it feels like we have a clearer picture of what happened — circumstances that underline the folly of treating any particular bill or law as a panacea. At times like this, we hesitate — or ought to hesitate — to speak ill of the dead. But as we learn more, it appears that the preeminent factor in Friday's awful events was a mother who made two catastrophic errors in judgment. First, underestimating just how much of a danger her increasingly erratic son presented to her and the people around him; secondly, having a large stockpile of guns and insufficient measures to keep those weapons out of the hands of her son (trigger locks, a gun safe, and so on). Clearly, the poor woman had some sense of the danger her son presented: Bloodthirsty child killer Adam Lanza might have snapped, and carried out his unspeakable atrocities after learning that his mom wanted him thrown in the psych ward, according to published reports today. "From what I've been told, Adam was aware of her petitioning the court for conservatorship and [her] plans to have him committed," Joshua Flashman told. 25, FoxNews.com. "Adam was apparently very upset about this. He thought she just wanted to send him away. From what I understand, he was really, really angry. I think this could have been it, what set him off." Flashman, a U.S. Marine, is the son of a local pastor, knew the Lanza family and the families of many of Adam Lanza's victims. Fox News quoted a senior law enforcement official, involved in the probe, saying that investigators are examining "his future mental health treatment" as a potential motive. This is not to say that the gunman's mother is the only one who failed us all. A lot of folks on the right were examining this hard-hitting column from Ruthie Blum: According to information gleaned over the past few days, Nancy Lanza, Adam's mother, had paranoid fantasies about economic and social Armageddon. To prepare for what she believed was imminent danger, she acquired several assault weapons and taught herself and her sons how to use them. This may have been one of the reasons behind the couple's divorce in 2009. Another might have been the difficulty involved in raising a special-needs child. This is all speculation. What is certain, though, is that Peter Lanza knew his former wife had guns in the house. He knew that she had a weird world view. He also knew that Adam was a home-schooled social misfit. How, then, could he have simply left and never looked back? Divorce is not an excuse for not being in touch with one's son for two years. Nor is the fact that he remarried. His new home is located in another part of Connecticut, not in a different country, or even out of state. And a father has paternal responsibilities, however hard they may be. Sadly, this is often not the reality on the ground. Dear readers, I hope you never suffer the pain of having a loved one lose touch with reality or experience mental disorders of any kind. But if you do, and you sense any possibility that those loved ones could lash out in a fit of anger or frustration, I hope you can take steps to ensure they do not have access to guns or any other object that could harm themselves or others — kitchen knives, fire accelerants, and so on. Oh, what a world we live in to have to contemplate such things. That Other Horrific Gun Violence That Doesn't Interest the Media as Much Speaking of a lack of gun control: A gun found at the scene of a shootout between a Mexican drug cartel and soldiers where a beauty queen died was part of the botched "Fast and Furious" operation, CBS News reports. Authorities had said that Maria Susana Flores Gamez was likely used as a human shield and that an automatic rifle had been found near her body after the Nov. 23 shootout. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, tells CBS News that the Justice Department did not notify Congress that a Fast and Furious firearm was found at the scene in Sinaloa. CBS News learned the Romanian AK-47-type WASR-10 rifle found near her body was purchased by Uriel Patino at an Arizona gun shop in 2010. Patino is a suspect who allegedly purchased 700 guns while under the ATF's watch. Strange how this particular epidemic of gun violence, just south of our border, never quite caught the media's attention the way other shootings did. ADDENDUM: Dan Gainor: "If having a gun in my home puts me at risk, why do lefties care? They hate me anyhow." To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com Save 75% . . . Subscribe to National Review magazine today and get 75% off the newsstand price. Click here for print-edition information. Click here for digital-edition information. And National Review makes a great gift. Click here to send a full-year gift to NR Digital, and here to send a full-year subscription to the print edition. Conservatives – stay healthy! Get plenty of Vitamin Sea on the next National Review cruise. Visit www.nrcruise.com for complete information about our next trip. National Review, Inc. | 
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