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Defense Secretary-designate Chuck Hagel will take the oath of office later today, which will likely be a satisfying resolution to a difficult confirmation process. But before he's sworn in, Senate Republicans issued one last challenge to their former colleague.
As Chuck Hagel proceeded toward confirmation Tuesday, several Republican senators said that he will have a lot of work ahead of him to prove himself and repair his relationships in the Senate after the Pentagon nominee's long and bruising confirmation battle. [...]
Several GOP senators who were directly involved in the Hagel fight ... said they were willing to work with Hagel but that it was Hagel's responsibility, not the Senate's, to mend fences and prove that he can do the job.
This has to be one of the more amusing things I've heard from Senate Republicans in quite a while. In effect, the line from the GOP minority is, "We smeared Chuck Hagel, we questioned his patriotism, we questioned his loyalties, and we accused him without proof of having ties to America's enemies. Now that he's confirmed, we expect Hagel to start mending the relationship we destroyed on purpose as part of our partisan scorched-earth campaign."
Even by Republican standards, this is pretty nutty.
Stepping back, I'm still not altogether sure what the GOP strategy was on Hagel -- all the public saw was a Republican tantrum over President Obama nominating another Republican to his cabinet -- but the party's tactics are not without defenders.
Aaron Blake, for example, argued that the Republicans' anti-Hagel campaign may have come up short, but "it was worth it."
...Republicans were able to bring his numbers down a little, with Pew showing his unfavorable rating rising from 18 percent in January to 28 percent last week (his favorable rating also rose slightly, from 18 percent to 22 percent, over that span).
In the end, the Hagel nomination will amount to little more than an inside baseball political game. Republicans effectively registered their concerns and have, for the second time this year, either thwarted one of President Obama's likely Cabinet picks (Susan Rice) or served notice that they won't be steamrolled into supporting divisive nominees (Hagel).
There's nothing especially wrong with this in terms of factual claims. Hagel was largely unknown to the public before the confirmation fight, and he appears to be slightly more controversial now. Of course, unless the Nebraska Republican intends to seek elected office again, polls like these are likely to be inconsequential.
And it's true that the Senate minority "served notice" that it'll fight against nominees they don't like, but I'm fairly certain Democrats knew that anyway, and it's unlikely to affect President Obama's nominating decisions in any way going forward.
After all, Hagel won. As partisan fights go, this was a brush-back pitch from the GOP that didn't come close to the batter.
So, ultimately, what was the point of Republicans launching a half-hearted war against Hagel? Steve M's take rings true:
What this reminds me of is high school -- no, junior high. I wasn't seriously bullied back in those years, but I went through some low-level harassment, and I saw some directed at others.
You know the guy who'd slump in his seat as you'd walk down the aisle, so you'd trip over his feet? Or the guy who'd shove you into a bank of lockers and then just keep walking? These weren't beatdowns. They didn't cause real pain or leave marks. It was all just meant to throw you off stride, and to make sure you knew where you (and the perpetrator) stood in the pecking order.
The people who did those things in my school years obviously derived satisfaction from them. Their political counterparts are modern-day Republicans.
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...Republicans were able to bring his numbers down a little, with Pew showing his unfavorable rating rising from 18 percent in January to 28 percent last week ....
Because that's how you want your Sec. of Defense to be perceived...?
Thanks, GOP, for working toward a stronger America.
hagel was just a chip in the poker game the gop is playing. they thought if they held his confirmation up they could get some concessions from the prez. once they found out that strategy was lame; as usual; they gave it up. people must always remember one very important thing. no matter how bad the gop screws up, some parts of america will vote for them. i believe the social media is a much bigger factor in todays elections than what most pundits believe. people get small samples of election news from their friends and families and they listen. that changes opinions.
I think you're spot on, RandPMill. Saying something that makes sense to a stalwart Republican may not change his mind right then and there, but it rolls around in his mind. And if he hears it in other places, too, it begins to take hold. I encourage everyone here to speak up--not necessarily argue--and explain your thinking rather than trading talking points like jabs. It does matter.
Ironically, the latest RWNJ meme is the "low-information voter" to explain Obama's 2nd win, yet it is their own constituency that is truly "low-information" because they get their "news" from one source - The Conservative Right Wing Entertainment Complex. These are the folks that will continue to vote Republican despite (or, more to the point, because of) the information being spoon fed to them.
Chuck Hagel was attacked and smeared largely because he refused to move the goalposts to the Right during the Bush years! He knows where our political center rests, and knows his party has been pulling it toward tea drinkers for too long and too relentlessly, and also knows who the real pansies are in the Chamber of Republican Dishonor! Republican senators were in essence attacking moderation in front of the cameras, and that's how extreme they've become!
Now that he's confirmed, Chuck Hagel may very well become the next Give 'em Hell Harry! -Kevo
Hagel must be eager to put his own performance in the hearings behind him. But the endless whining from Lindsey Graham has gotten on my last nerve. He had the gall to say Hagel's challenge is "to prove to Congress that he's capable of doing his job". Is Graham capable of doing his own job?!?
It's all about the perception of the upper hand, thinking this is what will get them to continue to win elections...where they will continue to embrace a strategy to give them an upper hand. Versus helping America, or Americans. So really, the only thing that will teach them a lesson, the only thing that will stop this "our agenda is fine we only need to work on our messaging" horsecrap is to give them a shellacking like the ones Dems got in 2010's election. Thanks to redistricting, that's far less likely. And even if we were to get a majority in the House, AND somehow get a supermajority again in the Senate, enough Dems will turn all Blue Dog-gy and retard progress again. But that's basically what it'll take, to embrace Dean's old 50-state strategy and keep voters informed and impassioned so they vote and continue to vote for people who believe in progress.
So we're probably screwed, is what I'm saying.
I disagree. The Republican party's treatment of Hagel was more like the jilted junior high schooler who was just dumped by his first girlfriend. They long ago branded Hagel a traitor, and this was all about punishing him for that treachery. John McCain, in one of his millions of interviews on the subject, accidentally let that truth slip out, though he later backtracked and denied it.
That and the fact that the party just cannot accept how badly it has blundered it's messaging on Benghazi time and time again and is determined to just keep trying to hammer that issue until they find something that sticks.
I saw another article on this subject that postulated that the opposition to Hagel was associated with Hagel's rejection of Bush's preventive war doctrine in favor of containment. Before we went into Iraq, Hagel said it would be a disaster and that containment was a much more productive policy. When events proved him right and the neocons wrong, the neocons never forgave him. You will notice that the people who opposed Hagel are invariably neocons who think the solution to every problem is a military invasion.
Until proven otherwise, I accept that hypothesis since it explains a lot and has no errors in it. Their opposition was based on him making them look bad by being right on one of their core precepts while they were totally off base.
Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham led the attack on Mr. Hagel in order to protect Mr. Graham from a primary challenge in 2014.
Now they get to deal with a Secretary of Defense that owes them no favors and will be in charge of directing deep cuts in defense to take effect over the next decade.
Good work guys.
Still Hagel will cut where it's in the best interest of the country - or where it does the least damage. Hi might turn against Arizona or South Carolina only in the unlikely case of two equal choices between let's say Virginia and one of the two other states.
He will not damage the office over his revenge. That wouldn't be Hagel. And that's what McCain and Graham calculated on.
I'm not saying he will go out of his way to hurt South Carolina or Arizona. But there will be plenty of pain to go around, and I doubt those who used his confirmation hearings to grandstand will be spared any of the pain.
I see the Projectionist Party is back in the fray! What-a-surprise..
Chuck should immediately cut funds for defense-work in the districts of the congressmen who challenged his patriotism. The sequester has given him a unique opportunity to allow the blame to fall on the congressmen alone and allow payback at the same time.
I think Chuck Hagel is the right man, at the right time, to punch these bullies in the nose and put a stop to Republican senatorial abuse of Senate rules. He should make plain that he is not grateful for how his fellow Republicans treated his nomination, and that he will now exact payback, in the course of what everyone knows his job now is--to cut military expenditures. Let the cuts fall first and mostly on the States represented by his attackers, so their constituents are made aware that there IS a line their Senators can cross, and now they must pay the price for having elected, supported and encouraged schoolyard bullies in the US Senate. Bring on the wrath of Hagel, let it become legendary, with the full support of President Obama and the Democratic Party. Give Hagel, a Republican, the honor of being the tip of the spear.
Hagel answers to Obama, and Obama does not play the revenge games with Republicans. As much as we would like him to, he won't stoop to their level. The only way IMHO there would be any kind of revenge would be if the Republicans won and derailed Hagel. They did not come close...
The GOP is nothing but punks. And all their moves are punk moves. Why? Because they can, and nobody makes them pay for it as they should.
I do remember the satisfaction I finally had when one of those so well-described by Steve M came after me in the showers after high school swim team practice, snapping me with a rat-tail from the shoulders down; I made my own and went after him from the shoulders up, finally knocking him to the shower room floor as he cried out I wasn't "fighting fair" and smacking him against the floor hard enough to break his nose. When he died in Vietnam (shot by his own men for being a worthless PoS), he still had the scar above his eye I had inflicted. And after that, nobody tried anything with me ever again in school. It's been my response to bullies ever since, which is why I have the attitude toward Republicans that I do (and why every bully who has come up to me has gone away a loser). The sooner a bully is smacked down once (which is all it takes) the better.
If I were Sen. Hagel .....
As soon as the swearing in ceremony was over, I'd turn to the audience, drop my trousers and reveal the "X" mark on my cheek and reply..."Hey Reps, the line forms here" !!!
Or, in a more appropriate manner,
I would raise my thumb to my nose, stick out my tongue, wiggle my fingers and reply " Neener, Neener, Neener." !!!
Guess it's a good thing I'm not Sen Hagel.
If I were Secretary Hagel,
I would cite the obvious need to improve the quality of our service academy graduates, especially those from Annapolis that end up in the Senate, and reform the admissions process.
Only admit those that have already served in a combat unit and attained the rank of sergeant or its equivalent. No more admissions for the sons of admirals or the children of the well-connected.
It might be a good idea to do something about the infiltration of the christianists into the military, especially the Air Force Academy.
If they serve four years active duty and end up leading an infantry platoon they qualify to apply. What they do in their free time -- drink, pray, collect dashboard hula dancers -- is up to them.
If they are 18 years old and have a well-connected Mummy and Daddy, they qualify to enlist just like everyone else.
And down the rabbit hole we go...'Well yes, we lied, smeared and generally acted like twelve year old bullies but YOU Hagel must make things RIGHT. It's all YOUR fault that we acted like undisciplined aholes!'
If I ran up to someone I knew, punched them in the face, and then demanded they apologize for making me hit them, I would be roundly regarded as crazy. Then again, I'm not a GOP "statesman", where that behavior is called "leadership".
I suspect there may be many phone calls that will not be returned.
It's anti-bullying day ironically. Or if you prefer the positive favour as I do. "Support people" day.
#13.1 John -- You know, that sounds like it might be in the best interest of our military -- I was around the US Air Force for several years and those guys who wear the ring, well, were not what they should have been.
#15 Robert -- Or, perhaps, returned by someone ranking under the Secretary of Defense -- they don't get the Top Dog, in other words . . .
Given the quality of whacked-out wing nut religious nut morons who attend the Hair Farce Academy, your experience is unsurprising.
What should we expect, when the most likely path into a service academy is being the child of a major donor to a member of Congress?