"This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility."

-- Barack Obama to Dmitry Medvedev, March 26, 2012

The puzzle of the Chuck Hagel nomination for defense secretary is that you normally choose someone of the other party for your Cabinet to indicate a move to the center, but, as The Washington Post editorial board points out, Hagel's foreign policy views are to the left of Barack Obama's, let alone the GOP's. Indeed, they are at the fringe of the entire Senate.

So what's going on?  Message sending. Obama won re-election. He no longer has to trim, to appear more moderate than his true instincts. He has the "flexibility" to be authentically Obama.

Hence the Hagel choice: Under the guise of centrist bipartisanship, it allows the president to leave the constrained first-term Obama behind and follow his natural Hagel-like foreign policy inclinations. On three pressing issues in particular:

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Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/10/meaning-hagel/#ixzz2HgC5ncAm