Hagel resignation yet another policy slap in the face as Obama tries to save face.

Chuck Hagel has become the third Secretary of Defense during Obama's presidency to quit. And the political spin machine inside a White House that has lied about so much, most notably about healthcare,  in trying to save Obama's face,  put out from the shadows and not for attribution, the  preposterous story that Hagel was forced out. 

Just about everyone knows that Hagel quit because he, like former  Defense Secretaries  Gates and Panetta before him and like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, were fed up with Obama's incompetence and lack of leadership in dealing with Syria, Isis ( whom Obama had scoffed at a year ago by calling them "the junior varsity"), Ukraine in selling out their sovereignty because he couldn't stand up to Putin and allowing Crimea to be annexed, and Assad with his phony red line over chemical weapons not to mention the going nowhere nuclear talks with Iran which has passed the predetermined deadline with no agreement and are now trying to be extended.

No one with two functioning brain cells (which seems to eliminate everyone at CNN who, like trained seals swallows the fish thrown at them by the White House - not just this White House, any White House - and just reports it)  believes that Hagel wasn't leaving because he had reached the end of his rope with Obama, his inability to formulate or approve a strategy on anything, and his failed way of doing things. That became obvious when a few weeks ago, memos Hagel had written to the White House which were blunt and said as much, criticizing Obama for his lack of a coherent policy and strategy became public. These things never become public by accident. And they laid the groundwork for Hagel quitting.

Hagel follows in the footsteps of Robert Gates, and Leon Panetta as Obama's third secretary of defense who has resigned because they clearly had enough and wanted no more  of the incompetence in the White House or to carry out Obama policies or non policies which they had no confidence in and which  in the past resulted in predictable failure.

 Hillary Clinton did the same after 4 years as Secretary of State, tired of Obama's foreign policy bungling and his refusal to take the recommendations of people far smarter than he is.

It was three years ago when both Clinton and Panetta recommended that the U.S. arm the moderate Syrian rebels both in their fight against Assad but also because of what they warned would be the rise of Isis. Obama dismissed their concerns and their recommendation and joked about Isis as being "the junior varsity".

Everyone who works for any president whether Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State or any cabinet official,  does so at the president's pleasure and has only one job function -- to carry out and execute the policies of the president. When you can no longer in good conscience do that, you resign.  Which is why Clinton, Gates, Panetta and now Hagel have all left.

If you don't believe in the policies, or  worse, if you are convinced they will fail and the president even after his own repeated failures refuses to take your recommendations, then quitting is the only honorable thing to do.

And that's  what Hagel did. And to try to avoid another embarrassment and save face, Obama had his cronies in the White House put out the story attributed to "sources" , that it was Obama who forced Hagel out and not the other way around. Which  is like the loser boyfriend claiming he  broke off  the relationship, not her.When everyone knows she was the one who packed her bags and said good riddance. Which shows that Obama, even now,  is still more concerned about saving his face than the things that are really worth saving.