"You have confirm him so we can find out if he's any good"
Posted on 02/05/2013 5:42:13 AM PST by Kaslin
The Senate's "advice and consent" role doesn't require it to rubber-stamp a presidential appointee for secretary of defense who senators believe would weaken America in this increasingly dangerous world.
Notwithstanding former Sen. Chuck Hagel's diminished view of the post -- "I won't be in a policymaking position" -- the secretary of defense is an exceedingly important position and must be filled with someone who understands the complexity and gravity of the threats we face.
In his testimony at his confirmation hearing, Hagel demonstrated a remarkable unwillingness to clarify his past statements, a stunning misapprehension of the identity, intentions and capabilities of our enemies, and a disturbing ignorance of the critical subject matter on which he would be advising the president. For example, he was unaware that the sequester cuts come out of the Budget Control Act.
As tentative and confused as Hagel appeared, it might seem unfair to describe him as arrogant. But how can anything but hubris explain Hagel's defiant refusal either to stand by or to renounce his bizarre statement that the Iraq surge was our greatest foreign policy error since Vietnam?
Hagel surely has an opinion now on whether his statement was correct, and those charged with making a determination on his fitness for the position are entitled to know his opinion. These are not matters you take on trust; we're talking about the national security of the United States, not some ambassadorship to the North Pole.
But Hagel's past statements on Iraq and his refusal to own up to his errors pale in comparison with his alarming responses concerning President Obama's policy on Iran. His bewilderment and flip-flopping would have been amusing but for the seriousness of the subject matter.
But it only got worse. When asked about Iran's nuclear weapons efforts, Hagel said, "I support the president's strong position on containment." Notice the total lack of ambiguity in Hagel's assertion. After being handed a note presumably informing him of his misstatement of the president's policy, Hagel backed off slightly, saying, "We don't have a position on containment." Strike two -- but Hagel still wasn't getting it. Sen. Carl Levin had to carry him over the finish line, telling him, "Just to make sure your correction is clear, we do have a position on containment -- which is that we do not favor containment."
Are you getting this? Hagel essentially went from "Obama strongly favors containment" to "he doesn't have a position at all on containment" to "he opposes containment." Even the most forgiving reading of the transcript could not reasonably lead to the conclusion that Hagel had the slightest idea what the president's policy is or should be on possibly the most important threat facing the United States and its allies today. This was astonishing.
But Hagel wasn't done demonstrating his cluelessness about Iran. Under intense questioning, he wouldn't concede that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps -- one of the worst exporters of terrorism in the world and responsible for killing countless of Americans and supporting the Iraqi insurgency -- is a terrorist entity.
How does one advise the president on terrorism when he apparently doesn't understand what it is and who some of its greatest practitioners are? Then again, if confirmed, he will be advising a president whose administration rejects the term "war on terrorism" and characterized the Fort Hood massacre by a confirmed jihadi as "workplace violence" and whose ego and warped ideology compel him to insist that a very active al-Qaida has been virtually dismantled because he approved the kill order on Osama bin Laden -- an action made possible only by interrogation techniques he strenuously opposed.
Then there are Hagel's shameless reversals on such serious matters as sanctions against Iran -- reversals he wouldn't even acknowledge, much less retract -- which cast doubt on his integrity. Sen. Roger Wicker pointed out, incredulously, that in a private conversation, Hagel confirmed a statement he'd made to an Omaha, Neb., paper that he opposed unilateral sanctions, yet Hagel took a "substantially and substantively different" position in a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer just a week later.
Perhaps most objectionable is Hagel's bigoted accusation that "the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people (in Congress)." When pressed, Hagel wouldn't name any specific people he had in mind, nor did he come close to giving a satisfactory explanation for his disgraceful terminology -- because there is none.
President Obama may very well succeed in securing confirmation for a defense secretary as ensconced in liberal appeasement as he is, but the Constitution does not require the Senate to approve a man who is ill-equipped to advise him on these issues and to serve as anything other than a Republican show puppet who will help Obama further dismantle our military and diminish our military readiness and national security.
But but ...he is a Republican...........
The Senate’s “advice and consent” role doesn’t require it to rubber-stamp a presidential appointee for secretary of defense who senators believe would weaken America in this increasingly dangerous world.
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WHY NOT
They rubber stamped a traitor for Secretary of State.
They should.
But they won’t.
After all, they are Republicans.
The only humans extant that come with “spine not included”.
Although I enjoy watching this idiot getting his head handed to him the fact is it makes no difference who is named to that post....anyone there is simply a pupet whose main job is to self destuct if the Sh!t hits the fan. What good did it do when Leon Panetta came out against cuts ?
I think he has mental health problems and needs to have his guns taken away. Not a good trait in a SecDef.
I believe so far all but two republicans (Cochran and Johanns) are going to vote against him. Fischer is undecided.
“The Senate must reject Hagel”
I thought they already had. Apparently there has not been a formal vote as yet, but that is just supposed to be for the optics.
Chuck Hagel is a rather thorny personality who has left more than a few abrasions and lesions in his wake, and other jRepublicans can have long memories about these slights and abusiveness.
The fact he may not be entirely stable mentally should also be a factor in this determination.
I think 0’s entire defense/intelligence/diplomatic team is unhinged. Seriously, I think there’s some severe mental disease going on in there.
Hagel looks and acts as though he’s suffered some kind of stroke.
They should. But will they? I doubt it.....
Deb Fischer will be under pressure from both sides, but ultimately none of this matters. Whether it’s Hagel or J.Q. Clinton, or anyone else, the secretary of defense will still be tied to the socialist agenda. All these Cabinet officers are essentially the same non-entity.
“You have confirm him so we can find out if he’s any good”
****
I actually heard a lib commentator almost say this on one of the Sunday shows. “We won’t know how well he will do until he is in the job.”
Don’t remember who or which show as it was the final straw in my confidence that anything will save our country, and I tried to forget that I had heard it.
Can’t forget... we’re talking about an invertebrate species when on the subject of Republicans. Oh, they’ll discuss it a lot, but when all the shouting is done, they’ll submit to the “elections have consequences” argument and confirm Hagel 70-30.
Yes, election do have consequences. I am going to repeat myself, only 2 republicans are on record saying they will vote for Hagel (Cochran and Johanns), one undecided (Fischer). So maybe it will be on the line of 59-40 .
Sometimes, when you reject Kimba Wood, you get Janet Reno.
Kick the Republican to the curb. Man the Democrats are loving this. I REALLY wish that the Republicans played like the Democrats. They are evil...lol. But man do they ultimately get what they want. I wonder who they will pick once the Republicans force Hagel out? Man why can’t Republicans ever play the game right?
Obama picked Hagel because he knows Hagel is poison to Republicans because Hagel is even more extreme Left on foreign and defense policy than Obama himself is. Obama is laughing because Hagel is the opposite on those policies than almost all other Republicans are, so it’s like Obama just tossed a grenade among Republicans and is yukking it up.
The word “Republican” attached to Hagel’s name means NOTHING. He isn’t even a true Republican, the same as Colin Powell isn’t.
If he is voted up or down on his MERIT, he would be voted down by both sides of the political aisle.
And besides being a Leftist on f & d policies, he acts like someone who has had a stroke or something. And he looks like it too.
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