Friday, February 01, 2013

Hagel's Sinking Nomination


President Obama's nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary is now in serious trouble, as if Hagel's previous comments and votes weren't trouble enough with a very strong following within the Republican caucus - his disastrous confirmation hearing before the Armed Services Committee yesterday only further imperils his hopes.  

Strong Republican questioning on the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, ongoing nuclear issues with Iran, his thoughts on Iran and his previous comments that we are the "world's bully," resulted in Hagel remaining on the defensive most of the hearing, non-committal on many questions and he committed a major blunder by deeming Iran a legitimately elected government.

All of this in just the past day has turned even more Republicans against his nomination, meaning he has to somehow convince five (which may prove impossible) of his former colleagues to back his Defense Secretary vote, and if the current trend is prophetic - he'll have to settle for just one.

While the actual nature of the confirmation vote is unknown, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell might require a 60 vote threshold to clear it, or a simple up or down vote, one thing remains certain: Chuck Hagel will not receive much, if any GOP support in the U.S. Senate.

We can only hope Hagel's nomination is blocked by the Republican Senators and the White House is forced to pick a common sense, defense oriented individual who doesn't occupy nonsensical nor extremist worldviews on international affairs, but I digress... We must win this fight before we look into the future.

What say you?

1 comment:

  1. His only qualification, according to democrips, is his war service. So what? Kerry spent 3 months in-country, falsified his 3 purple hearts (2 were self-inflicted scratches) and used connections to get a silver star. And the democrips say he's qualified because he's a war hero? What a swamp of amoral corrupticrats.

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