agencies. and, you know, even with the budget this year that, you know, hagel s budget under sequestration, that only brings us back to 2007 levels in real terms. so it s not like even going back to when dick cheney was secretary of defense. no, it s still post certainly a post-9/11 footing which is a terminology i know the vice president appreciates. before i let you go, real quick, on the foreign policy question, your reaction to this d.o.d. announcement today. regarding karzai. well, i think it s a smart move because let me tell you, i dealt with it, i was part of a team that went over there. he really thinks we want to stay more than he needs us. and so i think this is great to call his bluff and say, okay, you don t want us, we re planning on that will get his attention and particularly the people who will succeed him in the election. yeah, you know, i don t want to make light of it, but i can t imagine after 12 years why he d
i mean, people forget sequestration applies to everything else other than entitlements and obama has proposed basically that the extra $50 billion he s asked for will be split between the pentagon and all the other agencies. and, you know, even with the budget this year that, you know, hagel s budget under sequestration, that only brings us back to 2007 levels in real terms. so it s not like even going back to when dick cheney was secretary of defense. no, it s still post certainly a post-9/11 footing which is a terminology i know the vice president appreciates. before i let you go, real quick, on the foreign policy question, your reaction to this d.o.d. announcement today. regarding karzai. well, i think it s a smart move because let me tell you, i dealt with it, i was part of a team that went over there. he really thinks we want to stay more than he needs us. and so i think this is great to call his bluff and say, okay,
a very important foreign policy question has come up just today, as you probably read in the new york times and the guardian newspaper, both very influential newspapers have urged this white house to show some leniency perhaps offer clemency, a plea bargain of some sort, to the nsa contractor, edward snowden, for all the national security leaks he s released out to the rest of the world. i m just curious, what do you think the president should do about that? should he offer him leniency? well, a plea bargain means a lot of things. it means that snowden must confess to guilt for committing a crime, and to be punished in some way for it. i don t object to plea bargain negotiations but i also think that people should be obeying the law. it s understandable that the new york times and the guardian would take that position because they have been participants, in fact, leaders in disclosing the information
wasn t. i m not sure why. on the politics, your former colleague wrote about this, if white house operatives really believe because hagel is a republican former senator and the gop already got its scalp, hawks would look the other way while the administration nominated a man likely to oppose against iran? those white house operatives should seek a different line of work. joy reid? the neocons won t stop. they ve been wrong on every foreign policy question of my lifetime and still want to be in charge. to think of another liberal-type reformer you have to go to harold brown under carter and was a multilateralist, looked to use the pentagon as a place to negotiate arms reduction treaties. it was a different type of defense strategy, it was, by the way, controversial at the time. but the point to hagel, joy, is we re talking about someone who
if the united states has al qaeda, bin laden, in our sights and pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out. now i think that s the right strategy. i think that s the right policy. and john, you re absolutely right that presidents have to be prudent in what they say. but coming from you who in the past have threatened extinction of north korea, i don t know how credible that is. lawrence o donnell is in the spin room at the site of the debate. he s with robert gibbs. hi, lawrence. thanks, rachel. robert, how about of debate prep was spent showing the president how you can take any foreign policy question and turn it back to jobs and domestic policy? i think you have a good point. energy independence is a domestic issue and a foreign