He may be President Obama’s newly installed Defense secretary, but to the troops Chuck Hagel
makes time to talk to, he’s the trusted sergeant they can confide in, just like when he served as an Army sarge in Vietnam.
It’s a role Hagel relishes. While most of his time is dedicated to managing the drawdown in Afghanistan and preparing for the first time in a decade when the nation won’t be engaged in a major war, associates said he is devoted to enlisted members and their morale.
Just last week, he sat down with a group of junior enlisted service members for lunch, something he has promised to do every month. The gatherings are a rare opportunity for young men and women in uniform to talk directly and privately with the boss. No staffers are allowed in the room — it’s just the troops and their “SecDef,” who was once a junior enlisted soldier himself.
At last week’s lunch with six men and six women from across the services, a senior Pentagon official told Secrets, the topics included the future of the military, sexual assault, pay and benefits. One service member even told Hagel about her experience as a lesbian in the military raising a young child with her wife.
“The secretary greatly values these opportunities to sit down on a regular basis with men and women who represent every facet of military life,” said the official.
OBAMA GETS CHILL FROM BLACKS, HISPANICS
Feeling let down by a president for whom they once had high expectations, blacks, Hispanics and younger voters are starting to give up on President Obama.
Pollster John Zogby told Secrets that his latest poll revealed a drop in support for the president from the key constituencies because they feel Obama hasn’t delivered the results he promised in his re-election campaign.
Those 18 to 29 years old are the most disappointed. Some 61 percent voted for Obama in 2012, but now, in Zogby’s poll of 919 likely voters taken July 12-13, only 46 percent approve of his job, miffed that he hasn’t curbed the rise in student loan rates.
African-Americans, dominated by Obama in the election with 93-percent support, now give the president an 84-percent approval rating. “They thought he would be able to do so much more,” said Zogby. And Hispanics, worried that Obama isn’t fighting hard enough for immigration reform, give him a 68 percent approval rating.
TAB FOR OBAMACARE ALREADY AT $3.8 BILLION
The administration has already spent $3.8 billion creating the system for Americans and businesses to buy Obamacare health insurance, and that figure is likely to top $5 billion when every participating state comes online, according to federal figures.
California has received the most so far, some $910 million in grants to be used to build the state’s “health insurance marketplace,” the so-called “exchanges” where citizens and businesses will be able to compare and choose their preferred coverage as soon as October.
The $3.8 billion already spent on grants to 51 states, territories and the District of Columbia is just to serve the estimated 21 million to 40 million people who don’t have health insurance. The majority of Americans already have insurance, typically through their workplace.
The president’s decision to delay forcing employers to participate for a year won’t affect funding for state health insurance exchanges.
SEN. LEVIN CHEERS: ‘DETROIT IS BACK!’
Don’t diss Detroit to Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the city’s top cheerleader in Washington. “My city is coming back. It’s coming back strong,” he declares. Levin, 79 and a one-time city official, has always had a house in Motor City, and even raised his kids in the crime-ridden, nearly bankrupt city. But he said that younger people moving in to take an unexpected wave of new jobs making cars, watches and bikes have revived Detroit. “You can’t buy a condo in Detroit” because of the employment rush, he said.
He admitted that some of the city is still a mess, and bankruptcy looks likely, but Levin said the “other half that is going is amazing, an amazing story.” The biggest hurdle: “Trying to turn around the image of Detroit.”
The key to that job: The Detroit Tigers beating the New York Yankees. “When we knock the Yankees out to win the pennant, that’s proof of it.”
PAUL BEDARD, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
