The Hagel Filibuster
on February 14, 2013 at 12:11 pmDan Foster asks, “what’s the point?”:
Okay, so what are you going to learn about Hagel in the next ten days? Is there some bombshell you’ve got ready but you need a little more time to cross the Ts and dot the Is? Are you using this holdup as leverage to get something else you want? Do you think peeling ten days off the calendar is going to prevent Harry Reid from bringing some odious measure to the floor? If the answer to all of these questions is “no”, just what the hell is the point of waiting to confirm Hagel?
Don’t get me wrong. I think Hagel is an awful candidate who reflects his would-be boss’s low regard for the Pentagon. I think Hagel’s ceiling — his ceiling, people — is ineffectual bumbler disliked by Pentagon lifers. And I don’t think he has a floor. But, if you’re going to let this guy get confirmed, who’s soul do you think you’re saving by waiting ‘til next Monday to do it?
Well, there may be more things like this:
Chuck Hagel, whose nomination is currently being filibustered by Republicans, reportedly argued in a previously unknown speech that the U.S. State Department is controlled by the Israeli foreign ministry.
Picky, picky, picky.
Yes. Loyal opposition, just bend over and take it.
Why not just get it over with, give Hagel his vote, and we can just surrender to the French!
With Kerry running State and Hagel at Defense, the FRENCH look like the Roman Legions, the Waffen SS and the Golden Horde combined, compared to the respect anyone will have for military or diplomatic establishments.
It might be that support for Hagel is leaching away as the reality of his unsuitability sinks in. Sometimes it just takes time for an Awful Realization to dawn. Or, alternatively, the longer Hagel is in the news, the worse the Obama Administration looks.
AOG,
Obama and / or the Obama Admin looking ‘bad’ in the news, has now gone on for about 6 years. Evidently, there are two kinds of people. People who support him regardless of the size or number of warts. Then there are people Obama and his ‘side’ openly label as racists, homophobes and terrorists.
Oddly, anyone who openly admits to being a terrorist isn’t on the ‘terrorist list’.
Perhaps Hagel cannot be stopped (I remain unconvinced, but since I bet against Obama in two straight elections, perhaps I am a poor person to ask…), but at the very least the GOP can make this expensive for Obama, and cause him to think twice about the next totally unsuitable candidate he sends to the Senate. At worst, it shows that the GOP hasn’t decided to lie down and die, even when they do lose…at best, it is the beginning of real resistance…
What you ignore is that Obama might be proposing these people precisely to destroy their political career elsewhere.
Destroying Hagel/Brennan/Lew? That might be one of the few things that I actually find appealing about Obama…
It’s important that the dismantlement of the military industrial complex have a Republican front and center for future CYA.
= Diversity
How can I put this?
HUH?
Hagel is nominally a Republican, I think is his point.
On the bright side, Hagel doesn’t belong in the Senate, either, and this might be the quickest way to move him along.
Sorry, but he hasn’t been in the Senate for four years. And sadly, based on history, he’s a perfect fit for the Senate. Or at least he wouldn’t stand out in his idiocy in that body.
Rand is correct in all particulars — and I could’ve sworn the fact of Hagel’s prior departure from the Senate was already pointed out to you in a previous thread.