Will The GOP Slap Down Obama By Torpedoing Chuck Hagel?

I've never been a fan of Chuck Hagel's-- and I'm not about to start now. Would he be a better Defense Secretary than Casper Weinberger, Frank Carlucci, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld (or, for that matter John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis, although back in their days it was called Secretary of War)? He could hardly be worse. But I'm not going to get stampeded into "rooting" for him just because warmongers and partisan shitheads like McCain and Ted Cruz are opposing him. Cruz, for one, will oppose anyone Obama nominates for anything. He was one of only 3 who voted against John Kerry as Secretary of State. Yes, the hysterical, McCarthyite opposition to Hagel is really little more than a temper tantrum on the right and a way for them to express their psychotic hatred for Obama and their insistence than his presidency is illegitimate. A KKK stalwart like Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and his claque will never recognize someone as president who was elected with "colored" votes. As for McCain... the bile and venom and the unending lust for young blood has rotted his brain to a point where he's as great a danger to America as any anywhere on the planet.

The Republicans seemed to behave as the confirmation hearing was about finding the next U.S. Ambassador to Israel rather than someone to run the Pentagon. Hagel didn't do himself any favors with his performance, emboldening the extremists in the GOP to press for a filibuster against confirmation. Unfortunately, people watching C-Span learned more about the venality of McCain, Jim Inhofe and Cruz than about Hagel and about how he would run the Pentagon. The questions were about whatever their pet peeves happen to be in their sick jihad against President Obama... and against America. and, yes... Jim Inhofe gets his information from the Drudge Report. Poor Oklahoma!

Will Hagel be confirmed anyway? Unless the GOP goes ahead with an unprecedented filibuster that the whole demented caucus agrees to, yes. And two Republicans-- Thad Cochran (MS) and Lisa Murkowski (AK)-- have already said they're voting for confirmation. Hagel doesn't even need a single Republican vote to win a straight up or down confirmation vote. He's not going to lose any Democrats and both Independents seem to be OK with voting for him. And the GOP probably doesn't have the guts to mount a real filibuster against a former conservative Republican senator over trumped up charges on lunatic fringe right-wing websites. the kooks and obstructions will, as anyone who watches the Senate already knows, vote no. So? What else is new?