Taliban-Bergdahl swap unpopular, so … blame Hagel
Chuck Hagel has bus tire tracks on his back.
The polling is pretty consistent that the public is not buying Obama’s spin on the trade of 5 senior Taliban Gitmo detainees for alleged deserter Bowe Bergdahl.
Just over a week after U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was freed by the Taliban, a CBS News Poll shows 45 percent of Americans disapprove of the deal that saw him released in exchange for five Taliban militants, while 37 percent approve of it. About one in five do not have an opinion.
Views differ by political party: most Republicans disapprove of the deal, while just over half of Democrats approve. Among those who have served in the military, 55 percent disapprove of the prisoner swap.
Most Americans — 56 percent — say the U.S. paid too high a price to secure Bergdahl’s release. Among veterans, that figure rises to 65 percent.
Republicans and independents say the deal cost the U.S. too much, while Democrats are more divided: 42 percent think the terms of the agreement were reasonable, but almost as many — 39 percent — say the U.S. paid too high a price.
Pew Research further finds:
Overall, 43% say it was the wrong thing for the Obama administration to exchange five Taliban prisoners for captive soldier Bergdahl, while fewer (34%) say it was the right thing to do; 23% do not offer an opinion.
The new national survey by the Pew Research Center and USA TODAY, conducted June 5-8 among 1,004 adults, finds that while this specific prisoner exchange is viewed negatively on balance, most think the U.S. has a responsibility to do all it can to free captive U.S. soldiers in general, regardless of the circumstances of their capture.
Is it any wonder that the White House is laying the decision on Chuck Hagel’s lap? Via The Weekly Standard:
The last question asked at Monday night’s closed-door briefing of members of the House of Representatives was a simple one: Who made the decision to transfer five top Taliban officials held at Guantanamo Bay to Qatar in exchange for the return of the Taliban’s lone American POW, Army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl?
According to Buck McKeon, the chairman of the House Armed Services committee, the Obama administration’s briefers told he gathered House members that the person responsible for the decision to make the deal was not President Obama but Chuck Hagel, the secretary of defense.
“Now wait a minute, are you saying it was Secretary Hagel that made this decision, or was this the president of the United States?” McKeon, a California Republican, said to reporters. “It was the president of the United States that came out with the Bergdahls and took all the credit. And now that there’s been a little pushback, he’s moving away from it?”
The administration’s claim that Hagel, not Obama, made the decision is at odds with what Hagel himself said on Meet the Press on June 1. “I signed off on the decision,” Hagel said. “The president made the ultimate decision.”
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Comments
I don’t recall Hagel being in the Rose Garden when it was a celebration.
Soooo…
You have a statement that…on its face…strains credulity.
You have…according to press reports…80 to 90 Obami who KNOW about this goat fluck PRIOR to it happening (versus approximately ZERO members of Congress who BY LAW were supposed to be informed)…
AND you have Pres. ScamWOW doing his lil’ Snoopy Dance in the Rose Garden with Pashto-speaking Daddy Bergdahl, AND…
you have a very quickly shifting account of
1. bad health, supplanted by…
2. a death threat.
Seriously, does ANYBODY believe the lying liars here any longer? I mean, I KNOW you have some PRETENDING they do. But, seriously…???
Credo consolans – believing a thing not because it is demonstrably, empirically true, but because it feels good, fills a need, to believe it.
Kinda like Walker’s shifting stories.
This has turned into quite a rumble strip for obastard.
Chuck Hagel was an unqualified boob from the very beginning, a man completely in over his head during his confirmation hearings, a man who looked to me like he has a drinking problem.
….and to make Hagel the perfect patsy is the fact that he’s (ostensibly) a ‘pub.
What a dumbass.
The smartest thing Hagel can do is to make a very vociferous speech explaining this was a WH operation done in secrecy, he had no part in it (if that’s true), and resign in ‘indignation.’
Is there an epidemic of concussions in DC?
(Oops, I meant epidemic of repercussions.)
(heheheh) I wish.
How many troops would be killed if the military had to go in and kill these terrorists Obama released?
Don’t worry about that…it won’t happen. They know John Kerry (who served in Viet Nam) will be keeping his eye on them. They’ll probably renounce Islam, just to be on the safe side.
SPRONNNNGGGG
Hey, anyone know where I can get a new sarco-meter?
Unless they have GPS implanted in them where it can’t be removed, and Obama is planning on playing his drone video games, ain’t going to happen.
Well, O’s always been a shuck ‘n jive kinda guy, and is not a dog who can learn new tricks.
As for the rest of the admin, they’re the kind of losers who just won’t leave an abusive relationship.
In other words, business as usual.
But it still seems weird that the normally sycophantic press isn’t trying harder to make this go away.
The newspapers have shrunk so much that people are starting to use reporters to potty train puppies. That keeps reporters somewhat distracted.
Don’t blame Obama. He didn’t even know about the Bergdahl “Traitor for Terrorists” swap until he read about it in the newspapers.
Don’t blame Obama. He didn’t even know what a Bergdahl was until some WH dude handed him his schedule for the day, which noted that he’d be doing a little PR speech/event in the Rose Garden.
It’s up to CONGRESS to stop this insanity.
But, that’s insane, in itself, as America wouldn’t be in this quagmire if they’d done what they were supposed to do all along.
(What, me worry?)
LAO! John Boehner’s gonads are in a box on media’s bedside table. He will never do anything he’s required to do if it is against “The One.”
As for Americans as a whole letting this happen, just look to our education system, the media and the entertainment industry for an explanation of why your point is true.
The White House has a Wheel of Scapegoats game in the Oval Office. It gets spun when there is need to blame someone. Hagel’s name came around this time and stopped right in front of Obama.
Like Vanna, Carney’s, Gibbs’s and Axelrod’s job was and Earnesto’s job now is to turn the over blanks and reveal letters as guessed by the press. The winners are the ones who correctly pick the weekly scapegoat.
I’ve always been in favor of getting Bergdahl back, even though I remember from network news at the time that it was likely he’d deserted.
Using his recovery as an excuse to reconstitute the Taliban while putting targets on the backs of every American (particularly the military) in the region is another story entirely.
Threats to kill him after holding him as a bargaining chip for five years? Yeah, sure…
Why would you want to recover a deserter?
“Likely” isn’t good enough for me. He needs to face the UCMJ music.
If he was collaborating, we need to know. If he has mental issues or is some kind of twisted “free spirit” (I’ve read he would go AWOL from training exercises to watch the sunrise and sunset), we need to know. There’s a lot we need to know, and possibly improvements can be made in the recruiting process as a result.
Yes, but this administration has no desire to seek those answers. They never did and never will. If they disapproved of Bergdahl, they would not have made the trade. There will be no UCMJ repercussions for Bergdahl. You saw the Rose Garden hug. This “inquiry” will go nowhere, just like all the others. Bergdahl is being protected under wraps out of the country. So I ask again, why would you want to recover this deserter?
I agree that much if not all of what you suggest is probably true, but why give anyone an excuse to possibly leave someone else behind based on false information? Why should we accept leaving anyone (civilians included) behind? I hope most of us are better than that.
Not leaving someone behind does not equal trading, especially when you’re giving up FIVE of the highest placed terrorists in the world for a military deserter….and enemy sympathizer.
None of Obama’s cabinet are allowed to think for themselves or set policy on their own. Val tells them what to think and what to say. She says sign this and they sign that. No need to even read the document, chump. Hagel is the Administration’s token Republican stooge whose usefulness is about to expire.
Hagel’s usefulness is not about to expire. obastard is just getting warmed up. He’s got a lot more damage to do to our military and national security. He needs a dumbs#it ‘pub like Hagel to lay it all off on. Look for many more obastard Pinocchio moments of “Gee, I only just learned about that in the news. I will look into it.” (as he inwardly laughs his ass off).
Hagel’s too stupid and full of himself to quit.
Not to say “I told you so”, but…..I told you so.
Obastard hired a ‘pub to take the fall for this and his many upcoming decisions designed to damage the military and the U.S. role as a super power.
No lame duckhood for obastard, uh-uh. No. He’s going to do as much damage as he can before he leaves office. And the military portion of that will be blamed on yet another dumbass ‘pub.
Chuck Hagel is just one of Obama’s stooges. That, however, is no excuse. He should face trial for treason along with the al quaeda enabler-in-chief.