{"id":16882,"date":"2013-01-08T14:06:13","date_gmt":"2013-01-08T19:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=16882"},"modified":"2013-01-08T14:06:13","modified_gmt":"2013-01-08T19:06:13","slug":"hagel-should-get-the-opportunity-to-go-through-a-tough-confirmation-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/16882\/hagel-should-get-the-opportunity-to-go-through-a-tough-confirmation-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Hagel Should Get the Opportunity to Go Through a Tough Confirmation Process"},"content":{"rendered":"

To start, I\u2019ll take as a compliment Quin\u2019s assertion<\/a> that \u201cAshton seems to accept with some equanimity the idea that Chuck Hagel will be confirmed as Secretary of Defense\u201d since equanimity is a virtue I\u2019m trying to achieve.<\/p>\n

That said, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a Republican United States Senator willing to take Quin’s suggestion and put a permanent hold on Hagel\u2019s nomination.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing for Ted Cruz (R-TX) to make waves on cable television<\/a> by (rightly) blasting the Obama Administration over Hagel, the fiscal cliff, and gun control, but it is quite another for Cruz to use his senatorial prerogative of \u201cholding\u201d up the President\u2019s nomination for one of the top three Cabinet posts (State and Treasury being the other two); especially since Cruz is in his first full week as a Senator.<\/p>\n

Moreover, from the tone of opposition coming from other top Republicans like John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and others, I don\u2019t get the sense defeating the Hagel nomination through an obscure \u201chold\u201d is the proverbial hill upon which any Republican Senator wants to die this session.<\/p>\n

Instead, I think Hagel will go through the confirmation process with the kind of probing scrutiny Supreme Court justices get.\u00a0 It may very well be that, as Quin writes, \u201cThe man [Hagel], appears to many to be an anti-Semite.\u00a0 Opponents make quite a case that he should never set foot in the top office at the Pentagon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, let Senate Republicans, not just political pundits, make that case on the record.<\/p>\n

In the confirmation hearings, during floor debate, and in an actual speaking filibuster<\/em> if it comes to that, Senate Republicans will have many instances to make precisely the case Quin alludes to, and any other substantive policy criticisms about Hagel they think will defeat his confirmation.\u00a0 But let\u2019s have the argument in public, through the normal process of a presidential nomination.<\/p>\n

U.S. Senators like to think they work within \u201cthe world\u2019s greatest deliberative body.\u201d\u00a0 Let them prove it with a robust examination of Chuck Hagel\u2019s fitness to be the next Secretary of Defense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To start, I\u2019ll take as a compliment Quin\u2019s assertion that \u201cAshton seems to accept with some equanimity the idea that Chuck Hagel will be confirmed as Secretary of Defense\u201d since equanimity is a virtue I\u2019m trying to achieve. That said, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a Republican United States Senator willing to take Quin’s suggestion and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,1760,3984,3539,2526,721,1177,3694,3405,1479,2890,178],"class_list":["post-16882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-barack-obama","tag-chuck-hagel","tag-confirmation","tag-deb-fischer","tag-defense","tag-john-mccain","tag-lindsey-graham","tag-mike-johanns","tag-nebraska","tag-quin-hillyer","tag-ted-cruz","tag-u-s-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16882"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16893,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16882\/revisions\/16893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}