Chuck Hagel
February 12, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The Senate Armed Services Committee has voted to pass the nomination of Chuck Hagel on to the full Senate. The vote was 14-11, with all 14 “yes” votes being Democrats. Remember that Hagel, nominally a Republican, was supposedly President Obama’s idea of a bipartisan selection. In reality, of course, bipartisanship was never part of Obama’s thinking. It seems clear that Hagel will have the support of all 55 Senate Democrats.
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February 10, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Lindsey Graham says he will ask that the nominations of Chuck Hagel (Secretary of Defense) and John Brennan (CIA Director) be held up until President Obama answers questions about what he did and did not do in response to the Benghazi attack. Graham cites the slogan of then-Senator Joe Biden during the confirmation hearings on John Bolton: “No confirmation without information.” Graham is off base. His information request has nothing
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February 9, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
According to Khaled Abu Toameh at the Gatestone Institute website, there are reports that Hamas dispatched as many as 7,000 militiamen from Gaza to protect the regime of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi who faces a popular uprising. The reports quoted unidentified Egyptian security officials as saying that the Hamas militiamen had been spotted in the Egyptian border town of Rafah before they headed toward Cairo to shore up the Muslim
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February 7, 2013 — John Hinderaker
He’s done. The idea that anyone who refuses to disclose his sources of income from foreign governments and organizations could be confirmed as Secretary of Defense is ludicrous, even in the surreal Age of Obama. Now Ben Shapiro of Breitbart.com ups the ante: On Thursday, Senate sources told Breitbart News exclusively that they have been informed that one of the reasons that President Barack Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense,
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February 6, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Chuck Hagel has told the Senate Armed Services that he will not provide foreign financial details for the corporate and nonprofit organizations he has been affiliated with since he left the Senate in 2009. He claims he cannot do so because of confidentiality agreements with the groups in question. Hagel can, of course, ask the foreign groups in question to waive any confidentiality agreement he entered into. It’s not clear
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February 6, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
As we noted, per the questioning of Ted Cruz, Chuck Hagel had not, at the time he testified, provided the Senate Armed Services Committee with all of the speeches he has delivered over the last five years, including the identity of who paid him for them. I suggested that there should be no up-or-down vote on Hagel by the Committee until he is more forthcoming. Apparently, Hagel still has not
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February 2, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Chuck Hagel’s prevarications in his Senate testimony this week about the prevarications of the Obama Administration’s Iran policy brought to mind one of Churchill’s characterizations of British government policy about disarmament in the early 1930s—what at other times he described more simply as “mush, slush, and gush.” But this 1934 comment comes close to capturing the essence of Obama’s own brand of mush, slush, and gush about Iran: It is
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February 2, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Mark Steyn’s weekly column is posted at NRO as “Containing Hagel.” Subhead: “Tehran is pleased that we aren’t.” Steyn does the Steynian thing with Hagel’s almost unbelievable performance before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. Among other things, Mark rescues a few of Hagel’s quotable quotes before they are overlooked by Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and recede into the mists of the Age of Obama. Iran figured prominently in Hagel’s
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February 1, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The reviews are in for Chuck Hagel’s appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee. If he were a Broadway play, as opposed to a mere nominee for Defense Secretary, Hagel would close after one performance. The Obama administration was not amused. White House officials told CBS’ Major Garrett that they were disappointed with Hagel’s performance. Indeed, one Obama staffer described Hagel’s testimony on Iran as “somewhere between baffling and incomprehensible.”
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February 1, 2013 — Scott Johnson
It appears that the RNC has compiled the lowlights of Chuck Hagel’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, condensing them down to a mercifully brief 80 seconds. Quotable quote: “If I had an opportunity to edit that, like many things I said, I would like to go back and change the words and meaning,” Hagel responded at one point to a question about a 2003 comment in which
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February 1, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
At yesterday’s hearing, Ted Cruz, in addition to showing that Chuck Hagel has slandered both Israel and the U.S., raised an important procedural concern. He pointed out that Hagel has submitted to the Committee only four of his speeches from the past five years. This, despite the fact that Hagel’s financial records show that he was paid for 12 speeches in the last year alone. Obviously, the Senate needs to
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January 31, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Let’s hope not, because Chuck Hagel has not come across today as a particularly smart man. Even some leftists have been tweeting their negative impressions of Hagel. As I have suggested, he’s more cracker barrel philsopher than serious policy analysis. Hagel did prove, however, that he’s smart enough to know when to lie. He disavowed past position after past position. Sen. Vitter was particularly effective in pointing this out late
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January 31, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
I had thought that Lindsey Graham would be the most effective questioner of Chuck Hagel at today’s hearing, and Graham did his usual fine job of “cross-examination.” But for my money, Ted Cruz topped Graham and everyone else with questions that exposed not just Hagel’s contempt for Israel, but his contempt for the United States. You can view the tape of Cruz’s devastating round with Hagel here. First, Cruz played
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January 31, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Now it’s Lindsey Graham time. Are will still at war, Graham wants to know. After some stammering, Hagel says “Yes.” Graham’s next question is “name one person in Congress who has been intimidated by the Jewish lobby.” Hagel can’t do it (or won’t). Now Graham wants Hagel to name one dumb thing Congress has done in response to pressure from the Israeli lobby. Hagel can’t do it (or, actually, won’t).
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January 31, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Sen. Hagan of North Carolina extracts another pledge from Hagel to support the “special relationship” with Israel. These repeated statements by Hagel are self-serving and probably not sincere. But it’s salutary to have Hagel make them over-and-over. Part of President Obama’s reason for nominating Hagel was, I believe, the desire to stick it to Israel and the pro-Israel lobby. If so, that purpose is undermined, to some extent, whenever Hagel
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January 31, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Sen. McCaskill (the luckiest politician in America) is asking a laundry list of questions to enable Hagel to state his support for preventing Iran from obtaining nukes, keeping the military strong, baseball, and apple pie. These questions are meaningless, of course, without a discussion of Hagel’s past votes and statements. So far, Hagel is zero for two in answering targeted questions (those of McCain and Sessions) that focus on his
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January 31, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
With Sen. McCain having ripped into Hagel (see post below), Sen. Nelson of Florida tries to give Hagel a breather by asking him about his service in Vietnam. But Hagel, clearly stung by the exchange with McCain, wants to talk about the Iraq surge (the issue he ducked when McCain asked about it). So Hagel uses the Vietnam question to return to the surge. His view of the surge, Hagel
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