The White House on Thursday afternoon flatly rejected a request made earlier in the day by 15 Republican senators to withdraw Chuck Hagel’s nomination as defense secretary.
[snip]
In the Republicans’ letter on Thursday, the lawmakers argued in effect that this was Hagel’s own fault.
“It would be unprecedented for a Secretary of Defense to take office without a broad base of bipartisan support and confidence needed to serve effectively in this critical position,” the senators, led by John Cornyn of Texas, said in the message to Obama. “While we respect Senator Hagel’s honorable military service, in the interest of national security, we respectfully request that you withdraw his nomination.”
In addition to Rubio and Cornyn, Republican Sens. James Inhofe, Lindsey Graham, Roger Wicker, David Vitter, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Pat Toomey, Dan Coats, Ron Johnson, James Risch, John Barrasso, Tom Coburn and Tim Scott signed the letter. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but it has flatly dismissed similar calls in the past, noting that Hagel has more than the 51 votes needed for confirmation.
It can’t be said often enough, how loud the howling would have been if DEMOCRAT TRAITORS had done this to one of Bush’s nominees AT A TIME OF WAR. The dudgeon would have been high. McCain would have challenged someone to a duel on the White House lawn. So now comes this fucking clown parade of all the dumbest knobs in the GOP, and they’re all, “Hagel can’t take office if we don’t love him!”
Which is just the stupidest thing you can say, because: Watch him.
A.
A lot of statements are going around as candidates for stupidest ever:
You’ve already included : “It would be unprecedented for a Secretary of Defense to take office without a broad base of bipartisan support”
And what about the legislation that created the fiscal cliff? Put through the House with no (as in zero) votes by the dems, followed by a certain VP candidate in the last election taking credit for it. Now it is the fault of the dems?
It was kind of insane for 40-45% of the Senate to assume that they were entitled to run things. Now, 15% of it thinks it does.
What a contrast this is to Russ Feingold’s principled (but misguided) belief that a President should get the appointees he desires.
Rumsfeld was arguably one of the most incompetent SoDs in the history of the DoD, easily the most hawkish, easily the most corrupt, and the biggest liar of the bunch. And he had a history in his first stint in the office as an ideological neoconservative who distorted the intelligence to promote more military spending. And yet, he was confirmed in 2001 on avoice vote. Even Obama in 2001 declared that Rummy was part of the “mainstream” of military management, even though he never met a boondoggle he didn’t like or a war he didn’t try to start.
Hagel’s a nothingburger, but he made one mistake–he didn’t swear absolute, unquestioning fealty to Israel and support for that country’s territorial ambitions without being prompted to do so.
That’s enough these days to cause him considerable discomfort. What we really needed was someone to put the brakes on the imperial insanity inside the DoD. What we are going to get is the status quo and an SoD who’s going to feel–for the remainder of Obama’s term–like a mechanical duck in a carnival shooting gallery.
I must admit I’m pleasantly surprised not to see Richard Burr’s name on the list.
9/11. STFU + sit down.