White House to Go on Offense for Hagel Pick (For Defense Secretary)

Wall Street Journal ^ | 01/06/2013 | By SIOBHAN GORMAN And CAROL E. LEE

[SeekAndFind]

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama plans to announce Monday that he is nominating former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to be his next defense secretary in the face of intensifying opposition from Republican lawmakers, administration officials said Sunday.

Those officials acknowledge they have a bruising confirmation fight ahead. They also say they are confident they will prevail because Republicans ultimately won't be able to topple a former colleague, Vietnam veteran and two-term GOP senator from Nebraska who served on the foreign relations and intelligence committees.

Mr. Obama also may announce his nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, a position left vacant when David Petraeus resigned last year after admitting to an affair. The two leading candidates for the post are White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan and acting CIA Director Michael Morell.

Republican lawmakers on Sunday stepped up their opposition to Mr. Hagel, who initially voted for the Iraq war but grew to oppose it and who supported Mr. Obama for president in 2008. Critics also have cited Mr. Hagel's past criticisms of Israel as a basis for their opposition.

Sen. Lindsay Graham (R., S.C.) said Sunday on CNN that it would "probably be a bridge too far" for him to support Mr. Hagel. Mr. Hagel's foreign policy views, he said, are "outside the mainstream," and he would be "the most antagonistic secretary of defense towards the state of Israel in our nation's history."

Other Republicans, such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), cited what they see as a leniency on Iran and a past reluctance to impose sanctions on Tehran as reasons for their opposition. "He has consistently advocated weakness with respect to our enemies, with respect to the nation of Iran," Mr. Cruz told "Fox News Sunday." "Weakness in a secretary of defense invites conflict, because bullies don't respect weakness."

[darrellmaurina]

We have quite a few conservative Jewish Freepers. I’m pinging this to four I can think of just off the top of my head, but I am sure these four know many others.

Is there a Jewish FR ping list we could use to quickly gather as many details as possible about the problems with this Senate nomination?

I simply don’t have many details on this man’s history of opposition to Israel and I think our Jewish Freeper community might be very good at helping get facts and organize opposition.

[soycd]

Bingo. The rats want a republican to pin all their anti-Israel evil onto. I suspect the miserable gop will let them have it their way.

Very predictable.

[Cheerio]

Just more getting even and revenge from the White Hut. Get used to it we are in for another 48 months of this crap unless the GOP led House can muster up enough support to bring up Articles of Impeachment - that would put the WH on the defensive and shut down some of his “getting even” and “destruction of the GOP”. I know there isn't a chance in hell of removing him with a Reid Senate.

[Cheerio]

How many Senate votes does it take for confirmation?

With McLame's gang of 14 gone now, the nominee can be filibustered - but don't count on the GOP doing anything that radical !!! Zero won the election ya know, and he should get his way. /s

[butterdezillion]

But he has no legally-established birth facts (according to a certified verification from HI state registrar Alvin Onaka; see Larry Klayman’s letter to DNC Counsel Bob Bauer, at http://butterdezillion.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/complete-klayman-letter-to-bauer.pdf ) and can never have qualified as required by the 20th Amendment - therefore the 20th Amendment requires that Joe Biden “act as President”, including nominating a cabinet, etc.

Constitutionally-abiding Senators cannot vote for ANY of Obama’s nominees. And they would do very, very well to filibuster so that the government comes to a complete halt until this issue is addressed.

If the judiciary says that members of Congress cannot sue regarding legislative issues, then the judiciary gives no way for Obama’s birth facts to be determined, and the “political issue” that the judiciary keeps calling this stuff really needs to BECOME a “political issue”. And it is the judiciary which has said it has to be done this way - the judiciary which says that all Congress can do to protect the Constitution is to grind to a political halt. So teh judiciary takes the blame for this, for calling this a “political issue”.

Any Senator who really intends to keep their oath to protect and defend the US Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic needs to filibuster until Joe Biden nominates a Cabinet, as required by the 20th Amendment. That is the “political remedy” that the judiciary allows the legislative branch to do. The legislative branch is claimed to have no standing to file a lawsuit, and Hawaii statute does not allow birth facts to be determined without a lawsuit.

They want this battle, I say let’s let them have it...

It only takes one Senator to filibuster?

[ohioman]

That's easy to fight as long as the GOP strongly opposes Hagel. It is clear to see that Obama is trying to use RINO scum like Hagel to gut our military. In that way, he can say it was led by a Republican (albeit a Quisling POS - which succinctly describes Hagel).