As President Obama and outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel embraced Monday for a “going away” hug, the ink had not yet dried on reports that top administration officials have grown supremely dissatisfied with the the former Nebraska senator.
One senior defense official told NBC News that Hagel was “forced” to resign, while another went so far as to say that Hagel “wasn’t up to the job.”
“Another senior administration official said that Hagel has been discussing a departure from the White House ‘for several weeks,’ ” NBC News reported.
“[T]he next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus,” an administration official, who spoke of the condition of anonymity, told the New York Times, referring to Hagel’s resignation.
The New York Times report continued: The official “insisted that Mr. Hagel was not fired, saying that he initiated discussions about his future two weeks ago with the president, and that the two men mutually agreed that it was time for him to leave.”
Bloomberg’s Josh Rogin tweeted: “The White House threw Hagel under the bus, then ran over him with the bus and then backed up and ran over him again.”
In short, there appears to be a real and tangible distaste for Hagel in the upper reaches of Obama’s administration.
But you wouldn’t know that from watching the president’s announcement Monday of Hagel’s impending departure.
Hagel is “an exemplary Defense Secretary” and “a great friend of mine,” Obama said.
“When it’s mattered most behind closed doors, in the Oval Office, you’ve always given it to me straight. For that, I will always be grateful,” he added.
Hagel then added: “Mr. President, again, thank you to you and to all of our team everywhere. And as we know, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, it is a team effort. And that’s the — part of the fun of it, to help build teams and to work together to make things happen for the good of the country and make a better world. For all of that, I’m immensely grateful.”
The two then embraced, the supposed friction between the Democratic president and the Republican defense secretary hidden from plain sight.
