You will recall that Hagel was nominated just early last year for the job. But he had a lot of trouble with the Israel lobby, because he’d called it the “Jewish lobby” and said it had unrivalled power on the Hill. His tortuous hearing in Feb. 2013 — a “disaster”– is said to have damaged him throughout his short stint at the Pentagon. Though the hearing was famously parodied in an SNL skit that never aired, in which senators called on Hagel to fellate a donkey for Israel. Even the Anti-Defamation League got het up over that one.

Ashton Carter doesn’t have donkey issues.