Twitter has been all, well, atwitter today about remarks Chuck
Hagel made during
a Q&A session after a 2007 speech at Rutgers, in which a
contemporaneous account said he had insulted the U.S. State
Department as being “an adjunct to the Israeli Foreign Minister’s
office.” There seems to be no recording of that. But it is almost
as enlightening that during his formal speech itself, according to
his
prepared remarks, Hagel said two other highly dubious
things.First, he said one reason the United States “blundered into
Iraq” was “questionable intentions.” Oh, really? So it wasn’t just
flawed intelligence, but the actual intentions of the Bush
administration (and all of the Congress which approved, including
Hagel himself)? This is obnoxious.
The second worrisome statement was this: “We must be clear that
the United States does not seek regime change in Iran.”
Why should that have been clear? We SHOULD seek regime change in
Iran.
Separately, in 2008 Hagel was advocating the idea that the
United States should pressure Israel into negotiations with Syria’s
dictator Assad.
This guy is, well, strange.
Here’s what I wrote in a private email earlier today, from
memory, so I welcome any corrections if I have mis-stated
something:
Look, I’m against permanently killing judicial nomination with
filibusters, because I think it violates the spirit and perhaps the
letter of the Constitution; it holds a third branch hostage to a
dispute between the other two branches. But those concerns do not
apply when it’s one branch fighting another, and if the Dems have
set the standard they set for the Bolton filibuster, then there is
NO reason not to apply that same standard here. In fact, the
“problems” related to Bolton were far less important than the
litany of problems with Hagel.
— repeated use of the term “Jewish lobby.”
— refusal to designate terrorist organizations as, well,
“terrorist”
— refusal to support sanctions against Iran
— saying that so-called Jewish lobby “intimidates” senators
into doing “dumb things”
—refusing to join all 99 other senators in signing letter
against Russian anti-Semitism
— Multiple other weird relationships and statements weak on
bad Arab or Islamic states and/or anti-Israel
— not just wrong, not just dead wrong, but demagogically dead
wrong on the Surge
— utter incompetence and lack of knowledge about the Defense
Department, the sequester, and a host of other related issues
— Pathetic confirmation hearing
— Far too willing to GUT defense
— PLUS, as per Bolton, a reputation for being a real meanie
to his staff. (Yeah, that shouldn’t be a disqualifier. But it’s
basically what disqualified Bolton — without ALL of these other
things.)
This man shouldn’t be within sniffing distance of the men’s
room near the SecDef’s office. Mitch McConnell and other Senate GOP
leaders should be shouting this from the rooftops, publicly
pressuring reasonable Dems to join them, and whipping the GOP
caucus to block this nomination forever, by whatever means
necessary.
