There is an interview with Hagel in the latest issue of The American Interest (sub. required). At one point he sounds rather Obama-ish, although he actually means it while Obama, the most leftist member of the Senate (take that Ted!), seems to only pay lip service to the end of partisanship:
AI: With 11 years gone and one more to go in the Senate, how do you think back on your time here? Some say you’ve moved from many standard conservative positions to more centrist ones. You think that’s a fair description?
Senator Hagel: It is, and part of it has to do with what I’ve learned about the complexity of most of the issues we face as a society. We’re rarely confronted with easy calls, with a clearly “right” and a clearly “wrong” side. Life generally is not that way. But some people, from both parties, like to live in a world of absolutes, and that has polarized politics and strangled any bipartisan progress. People won’t work toward any kind of compromise when they feel they’re giving up their values, standards and beliefs. It has become clear to me, over the course of my 11 years working in this sausage factory here, that without any consensus on how to behave in order to move our country forward, we’re essentially paralyzed. I’ve moved toward the middle because that’s where I think the effective solutions are.
I’ve also learned to better appreciate the importance of personal relationships in how things work here. I’ve seen this President of the United States establish virtually no personal relationships, and it has cost the country. His position has been, “It’s either my way or the highway, because I’m the Decider.” But when you don’t have the lubricant of personal relationships in a democratic government—any form of government, really, but especially a two-party democracy—the gears will lock up, and the system will break down. That’s what has happened, and both sides are to blame.
It’s a very distressing dynamic, but I think the next president will understand that and act on that. Better personal relationships will form, and we’ll see a bipartisan cabinet, among other changes. It’s not a matter of choice, because the challenges facing this country are so immense that we can’t afford another four years of paralysis.
