January 8 – Can Our Bloated National Security Establishment be Reformed?; Hagel’s Chances of Being Confirmed; Venezuela’s Constitutional Dispute as Chavez Misses His Own Inauguaration

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Part 1	We begin with an analysis of whether there will be a real change in our national security establishment that is so bloated and expensive that it is becoming a threat to America’s economic health and security. A former National Security Council senior staffer for two presidents, Roger Morris joins us to assess whether Chuck Hagel will be able to reform the Pentagon in the face of the shrill opposition from neoconservative shills for the military industrial complex.
Part 2	Then we examine further Hagel’s chances of being confirmed as Secretary of Defense with many of his former Republican Senate colleagues leading the charge against him. Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb joins us to discuss the forces arrayed against Hagel and the growing number of former senior military, diplomatic and national security officials coming forward to support his nomination.
Part 3	Then finally, following the announcement today that President Hugo Chavez will not be attending his own inauguration in Venezuela of Thursday, we speak with Jennifer McCoy who is the director of the Carter Center’s Americas Program who has conducted election monitoring in Venezuela and is the author of “The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela”. We discuss the growing constitutional dispute between the government and the opposition, whose leader said today “There is no monarchy here, and we aren’t in Cuba”.