I usually reserve updates for the annual book version of my commentaries. But I feel constrained to put my two cents in on the spectacle that attended the confirmation of former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary. Especially because it so epitomizes the dysfunction that has the U.S. government now running on “sequester” mode, triggering automatic, across-the-board budget cuts.
Specifically, it speaks volumes about the polarizing times in which we live that the Senate voted essentially along party lines last week to confirm Hagel 58-41 — with only four Republicans joining all Democrats.
He will take office with the weakest support of any defense secretary in modern history, which will make him less effective in his job.
(Bloomberg, February 26, 2013)
This is how Senator John Cornyn of Texas took perverse pride in the way Republicans did everything possible to undermine the effectiveness of the man responsible for executing policies to keep America safe. This included the dubious distinction of filibustering a president’s nominee for defense secretary for the first time in U.S. history.
Which meant that, instead of a simple majority of the 100 senators to be confirmed, Hagel had to get three-fifths of them to vote to end the Republican filibuster. In other words, if 60 senators did not vote to end the filibuster, his nomination would have been dead. Thankfully, regard for the institutional integrity of the Senate remains such that enough Republicans joined with all Democrats to end the Republican filibuster by a vote of 71-27.
Mind you, customary practice dictates that, even if a senator thinks a nominee is unqualified, presidential prerogative and institutional comity entitle that nominee to a straight up-or-down vote to win a simple majority. Not least because, as commander in chief, the president is obviously better positioned than any senator to determine the qualifications of nominees to serve.
This is why the real story here is the lengths to which Republicans went to betray this practice. I alluded to some of their efforts in my January 31 commentary on Hagel’s Senate hearing. But here’s a summary of their betrayal — courtesy of a February 26, 2013 report by ThinkProgress:
Senate Republicans, spent two-and-a-half months trying to prevent Hagel’s nomination and eventual confirmation, mostly by promoting false claims and smears that Hagel is an anti-Semite, anti-Israel and pro-Iran, all of which with either debunked or lacked to stick. Hagel’s detractors then turned to a kitchen-sink strategy by distorting his record and making wild claims, for example that Hagel accepted money from America’s enemies and that the former Republican senator has ties to, as it turns out, non-existent terror groups.
Clearly, all of this would be bad enough even if Republicans were motivated by a genuine concern for the safety of the country. The truth, alas, is that they conspired to assassinate Hagel’s character in this fashion merely as payback for the way he routinely defied party orthodoxy.
Most notably, he incurred their wrath for criticizing former President George W. Bush’s decision to escalate U.S. involvement in Iraq. In fact, no less a person than Republican Senator John McCain betrayed their vindictive and petty-minded motive as follows:
There’s a lot of ill will towards Senator Hagel because when he was a Republican, he attacked President Bush mercilessly, at one point said he was the worst president since Herbert Hoover, said the surge was the worst blunder since the Vietnam War.
(FOX News, February 14, 2013)
For the record, Hagel is still a Republican, and history has proved him right with respect to the surge.
But I cannot overstate the point that defense secretaries have always commanded overwhelming bipartisan support, receiving no more than a handful of protest votes. This is because it was always understood that it is in the nation’s security interest for them to be unaffected by politics. No doubt this is why Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri felt compelled to sound this cautionary note:
I sincerely hope that the practice of challenging nominations with innuendo and inference, rather than facts and figures, was an aberration and not a road map.
(MSN News, February 26, 2013)
Sadly, as indicated above, this episode reflects the increasingly dysfunctional nature of politics in America today. It also affirms my view that Republicans are behaving like Taliban jihadists who think their political ideology is the word of God.
Only their my-way-or-the-highway approach to governing explains why, notwithstanding that compromise is absolutely necessary for any democracy to function, even the Republican speaker of the House, John Boehner, thinks merely uttering the word “comprise” is tantamount to political heresy. And only racism explains why this is first time in U.S. history politicians would rather not only betray previously held principles but actually sabotage national defense and economic growth just to rationalize their hatred of a sitting president.
All of which constrains me to reiterate that Republicans will do anything to vindicate their spin about Obama failing to lead, all while doing everything they can to undermine his leadership.
God help the United States of America….
Related commentaries:
Hagel as defense secretary for U.S. or Israel