Reply #121: This is idiotic - Hagel is the Ranking member of the NE and ME SFRC subcommittee

[karynnj]

and Reed is a West Point educated senior member of the Armed Services Committee. (Kerry, who is the Chair of the SFRC subcommittee just went to the middle east earlier this month) It is true that HRC is on the Armed Services Committee, but having joined it in 2002, she is an extremely junior member.

My guess for why he is with Hagel is most SFRC fact finding missions are bipartisan and he will need bipartisan support for the major policy changes he intends to make. I watched the Iran (not Iraq) hearing in the SFRC recently. What was interesting was that there was a huge amount of common ground between Kerry, Biden, Lugar and Hagel (Bill Nelson was there too but said little). Part of healing the country is to make foreign policy bipartisan again.