Liberals, can we please grow a backbone?

Last week, President Barack Obama nominated former Senator Chuck Hagel to be the nation’s next secretary of defense. The choice was wracked with controversy from both sides: although Hagel is a Republican, his break with traditional GOP views on foreign affairs gained him criticism from his peers as well as from Democrats across the aisle.

It’s not just his views on international politics that have hurt his reputation, though: in 1998, Hagel opposed the nomination of James Hormel to be the next ambassador to Luxembourg because he was too “openly, aggressively gay. “Hagel, of course, apologized for those comments. Last month. That’s right, he apologized for homophobic comments he made, 14 years after he made them, after he was already reportedly being considered for secretary of defense.

That doesn’t sound like a shrewd political move at all. It sounds like a totally sincere apology which obviously means he’s had a change of heart and seen the light on his homophobic views.

Hagel stated in his apology that his homophobic comments do not represent the “totality” of his public record, and that’s true, they don’t. Hagel believes that force should be used only after diplomacy and he was brave enough to break with his party on that view. He’s also a decorated war hero who served his country with loyalty.

But why are so many liberals giving him a pass on these discriminatory, disgusting comments?

A panel on MSNBC (which, I will openly admit, is usually one of my favorite TV channels) last month laughed (LAUGHED!) about Hagel’s “openly” homophobic comments. Joy Reid, managing editor of The Grio, said, “His only truly objectionable comment was his comment on the gay community, which he made about one person who has forgiven him.”

Author Catherine Crier and New York Times reporter Nick Confessore agreed, noting that it was “long ago,” “two years after Bill Clinton signed” the Defense of Marriage Act. Apparently, “it was a very different time in gay rights.”

… What? MSNBC, the go-to liberal network, defending the nomination of an “openly” homophobic man because his comments were 14 years ago? And because he apologized… last month?

And MSNBC isn’t alone: Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart released an editorial yesterday saying he was “openly” in support of Hagel’s apology. The stated reason? Hagel’s view “wasn’t far from the mainstream” at the time it was made.

Here’s a question: what if the comments were racist, instead? And what if they were made in the 1960′s? Would we be so quick to give Hagel a pass because it was a “very different time” in civil rights? The simple answer is no. We would recognize that even though treating black Americans like second-class citizens was the “mainstream” then, it was still wrong. We would recognize that espousing discriminatory views just because most Americans were also racist didn’t give you a pass: it made you a sheep.

Mediaite editor and my colleague Noah Rothman volunteers this explanation for the strange phenomenon of liberals defending homophobic statements: “But all sins are washed away in the glow of the Obama administration’s approval. Even the bigoted comments of a former Republican office holder.”

I’m not sure if that’s exactly what’s happening, but I am sure that liberal talking heads laughing over homophobic comments is perplexing and disappointing, to say the least.

{ 1 comment }