Senator John Kerry may have sailed through his confirmation hearings for Secretary of State, but a showdown is brewing over Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense.
Hagel may have once been a Republican Senator from Nebraska, but he’s getting very little love from his former colleagues on the hill. On Wednesday, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican from South Carolina, explained his dislike of the nominee: "It's a series of things, a series of votes, an edge about him that makes many of us unnerved about his selection at a time when the world is on fire," Lindsey said at a meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Yesterday, Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain, among others, also threatened to block Hagel’s confirmation until President Obama gave them more information about the attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, last September.
Takeaway Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich has the latest from Capitol Hill.
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Comments [3]
"Having a leaderless Pentagon" is the direct fault of the President who overlooked the the great and good choices to put forward a clearly unqualified candidate who had the habit of saying stupid things while appearing befuddled and unprepared. Just the sort of person we need running the largest military on earth.
"Why are they doing this"
If the US Senate does not challenge an unqualified candidate then who does?
What's the "play" of the media?
As Zwillich acknowledges Democrats have filibustered numerous republican cabinet nominees, just not defense secretary. So the narrative that this is sooo unusual is really more propaganda than factual reporting.
I needed a sponge, to wipe off all of the Hockenberry sarcasm that oozed out of my radio this morning.
The correct comparison to "Chuck Hagel" is not "Anita Hill." Hockenberry's mistake in that regard was revelatory.
Anita Hill was not a nominee. She was a witness. Nobody was digging up dirt on Anita Hill, and delaying a nomination in order to buy time to delay a vote and hope that a fishing expedition for fishy dirt would catch something in the net.
The nominee back in those days was federal appeals court judge Clarence Thomas. The Democrats were stringing out the hearings, to drum up opposition to the nominee, when the Democrat staff on the judiciary committee illegally leaked an FBI report to Nina Totenberg of NPR and Tim Phelps of Newsday. That leak, which was a felony, led to the news reporting on Anita Hill, and prompted a lengthening of the hearing.
I find it absolutely fascinating; how John Hockenberry essentially reversed this narrative, to portray Anita Hill as a victim, and Chuck Hagel to be a similar sort of a vicitm. It allowed Hockenberry to make the Republicans villains in both instances.
Amazing. Have a nice weekend, John.
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