# Republicans block vote on Hagel; WTF? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 15, 2013, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364 "2013-02-15T03:26:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/41 "2013-02-16T02:16:16Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Lindsay Graham said quite plainly they would filibuster Hagel, and then Brennan, until they got the answers they liked on Benghazi. As distinct from, say, the truth. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/42 "2013-02-16T03:42:38Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > This is what the Republicans count on- the false equivalency that people naturally assume that both sides do it. They don’t. The Democrats have never acted like the Republicans currently do. Maybe that’s their problem. Maybe they need to outgrow the notion that you can stay clean in a mud-wrestling match. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/43 "2013-02-16T05:51:46Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > This whole thing seems silly because it really handicaps Hagel before he even starts the job. Why would conservative Republicans want a damaged brand running the only department they consistently believe is a legit part of the federal government? Because it damages Obama. They are determined to deny him any success, just like they were determined to deny Clinton any success, only more so, because . . . well, you know. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/44 "2013-02-16T05:58:00Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > I’d say it’s more like the dog in the manger, actually. “What? We don’t get a guy we want in that position? Well, then, NOBODY gets the job. HAH!” > > By the way, who DO they want? A Republican POTUS **forever.** Pubs appear to have internalized the idea that the Reagan Revolution was once-and-for-all. For a Dem to take the WH after that seems to them an impossible reversal of history, like a Jacobite Restoration, it **cannot** be legitimate, whatever the voters might say. We saw that attitude expressed venomously in the Clinton years, and now it comes back to the power of ten or more, because of . . . well, you know. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/45 "2013-02-16T10:28:36Z")
> [@Kepler1571](#): > > This is just further proof that there are no more American conservatives. Hitch was the last one, and he was half Brit… There’s always Joshua Muravchik. ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/46 "2013-02-17T09:16:08Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > because . . . well, you know. Because black man? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/47 "2013-02-17T20:45:03Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > A Republican POTUS **forever.** Pubs appear to have internalized the idea that the Reagan Revolution was once-and-for-all. For a Dem to take the WH after that seems to them an impossible reversal of history, like a Jacobite Restoration, it **cannot** be legitimate, whatever the voters might say. We saw that attitude expressed venomously in the Clinton years, and now it comes back to the power of ten or more, because of . . . well, you know. and filibustering or otherwise obstructing the cabinet appointments will get them a Republican president? I don’t think that’s how it works… ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/48 "2013-02-17T21:06:46Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > and filibustering or otherwise obstructing the cabinet appointments will get them a Republican president? > > I don’t think that’s how it works… You’re ascribing far too much logic and thought to the Senate Republicans. At this point, their primary motivation is fear of their primary-election base, which has become largely insane teanuts. Any sign of actual comity or rational action is like kryptonite, with no use but to destroy them completely. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/49 "2013-02-17T21:15:16Z")
Guess where John McCain was today! He was on “Meet the Press”, part of their ongoing washed up Repubican losers support effort. > **[Yahoo News: Latest and Breaking News, Headlines, Live Updates, and More](https://news.yahoo.com/)** > > The latest news and headlines from Yahoo News. Get breaking news stories and in-depth coverage with videos and photos. Guess what he had to say! **McCain claims ‘massive cover-up’ on Benghazi** > [@](#): > > …There are so many answers we don’t know," McCain told host David Gregory. “We’ve had two movies about getting bin Laden and we don’t even know who the people were who were evacuated from the consulate the day after the [Benghazi] attack. So there are many, many questions. So we’ve had a massive cover-up on the part of the administration.”… ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/50 "2013-02-17T21:17:38Z")
Forgot to take his Aricept again… ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/51 "2013-02-18T07:38:08Z")
> [@Askthepizzaguy](#): > > Because black man? Because Yankee. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/52 "2013-02-18T14:57:34Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > and filibustering or otherwise obstructing the cabinet appointments will get them a Republican president? > > I don’t think that’s how it works… They’re thinking that **denying a Dem POTUS any successes** will get them a Republican next term. That’s been their strategy since Clinton’s first term. They think that way because all they’ve got is a hammer, as it were. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/53 "2013-02-18T15:21:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > They’re thinking that **denying a Dem POTUS any successes** will get them a Republican next term. That’s been their strategy since Clinton’s first term. They think that way because all they’ve got is a hammer, as it were. And some Republicans are not even denying that personal animosity towards Obama is the single motivating factor in opposing anything he proposes: Gingrich: [Republicans Will Oppose Any Immigration Plan Backed By Obama Because They Hate Obama](http://thinkprogress.org/special/2013/02/17/1605401/gingrich-republicans-will-oppose-any-immigration-plan-backed-by-obama-because-they-hate-obama/) > [@](#): > > During an appearance on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) admitted that Republicans are likely to oppose any immigration reform proposal introduced by President Obama because they personally dislike the Commander-in-Chief. > > “An Obama plan led and driven by Obama in this atmosphere with the level of hostility towards the president and the way he goads the hostility I think is very hard to imagine that bill, that his bill is going to pass the House,” Gingrich said. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/54 "2013-02-18T15:43:38Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Guess where John McCain was today! He was on “Meet the Press”, part of their ongoing washed up Repubican losers support effort. > > [McCain claims ‘massive cover-up’ on Benghazi](http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/mccain-massive-cover-benghazi-193426972--politics.html) > > Guess what he had to say! > > **McCain claims ‘massive cover-up’ on Benghazi** John McCain’s entire political career has been about harboring grudges and settling scores. The bipartisan act he played in the early 2000’s was a put-on designed to (1) get under the hated GW Bush’s skin, and (2) win media attention to soothe his personal ego and make another run at the presidency (is there ever a Sunday when he doesn’t have an exclusive interview with one of the political talkshows?). He’s also smarmy enough to con huckleberries like Lindsay Graham into thinking his causes should be theirs based on personal friendship. In other words, McCain is a jerk, and always has been a jerk. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/55 "2013-02-18T16:19:03Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > And some Republicans are not even denying that personal animosity towards Obama is the single motivating factor in opposing anything he proposes: > > Gingrich: [Republicans Will Oppose Any Immigration Plan Backed By Obama Because They Hate Obama](http://thinkprogress.org/special/2013/02/17/1605401/gingrich-republicans-will-oppose-any-immigration-plan-backed-by-obama-because-they-hate-obama/) Just in case anyone missed the “Cry baby” story 8 years ago, and since Gingrich is widely agreed to be the most intelligent of last year’s batch of GOP Presidential contenders, [QUOTE=Lars-Erik Nelson] Here was Newt Gingrich, leader of the Republican Revolution and defender of civilization on this planet, forced to sit for 25 hours in the back of Air Force One, waiting for President Clinton to stop by and negotiate a budget deal. But Clinton never came back. So Gingrich, in his rage, drafted two resolutions that forced Clinton to bring the federal government to a grinding halt. The extraordinary behind-the-scenes tale Gingrich told yesterday morning at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast is either comedy or tragedy, or junior high school cafeteria intrigue, take your pick. It surely was not what you expect to hear from the stewards of your government. Gingrich had been invited aboard Air Force One last week to fly to the funeral of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. With a budget crisis pending, he expected Clinton would take time out during the flight to talk about a possible solution. But Clinton, who seemed to be genuinely grieving over Rabin’s death, stayed up front in a cabin with former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George Bush on both the outward-bound and return trips. Then, when the plane landed at Andrews Air Force base outside Washington, Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole were asked to deplane by gasp! the rear door. “This is petty,” Gingrich confessed. “I’m going to say up front it’s petty, but I think it’s human. When you land at Andrews and you’ve been on the plane for 25 hours and nobody has talked to you and they ask you to get off by the back ramp . . . you just wonder, where is their sense of manners, where is their sense of courtesy?” To Gingrich, the professor of history, this was one of the snubs of the century, ranking, he said, with the time Charles Evans Hughes stiffed Hiram Johnson of the California Progressive Party back in 1916, a slight that cost Hughes the California vote and the presidency. **And it was this disrespect, Gingrich continued, that caused him to send the President two temporary financing and spending bills he knew that Clinton would have to veto thus shutting down the federal government.** [septimus added emphasis] [/QUOTE] BTW, the Wikipedia article on the Newt shows > [@](#): > > In response to Gingrich’s complaint that they were “forced to use the rear door,” NBC news released their videotape footage showing both Gingrich and Dole disembarking at Tel Aviv just behind Clinton via the front stairway. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/56 "2013-02-18T18:25:49Z")
> [@CJJ](#): > > John McCain’s entire political career has been about harboring grudges and settling scores. The bipartisan act he played in the early 2000’s was a put-on designed to (1) get under the hated GW Bush’s skin, and (2) win media attention to soothe his personal ego and make another run at the presidency (is there ever a Sunday when he doesn’t have an exclusive interview with one of the political talkshows?). > > He’s also smarmy enough to con huckleberries like Lindsay Graham into thinking his causes should be theirs based on personal friendship. In other words, McCain is a jerk, and always has been a jerk. Well, he must realize by now that he’ll never get another shot at the presidency and is probably in his last term in the Senate. Perhaps that will mellow him out just a bit? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/57 "2013-02-18T20:09:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Well, he must realize by now that he’ll never get another shot at the presidency and is probably in his last term in the Senate. Perhaps that will mellow him out just a bit? Doesn’t that make him a lame duck, which should inspire him to do all the bitchy last-term things the Republicans are accusing Obama of doing before he’s done them? Seems only fair… to a five-year-old. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/58 "2013-02-18T20:33:55Z")
There’s no particular reason to think McCain won’t run for re-election in 2016. Look at guys like Thurmond or Byrd. Frank Lautenberg is 89 and gave serious thought to running for another term. Back to Hagel: the Republicans are again saying they will allow a vote and don’t plan to keep this up indefinitely. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/59 "2013-02-18T20:35:47Z")
Of all the idiotic things that have been written about this confirmation process, [Jennifer Rubin](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/02/18/no-excuse-to-lift-the-filibuster/) at the Washington Post has managed to lower the bar even further with a piece that is as politically naive as I’ve ever seen: > [@](#): > > Both McCain and Graham (who termed Hagel “one of the most unqualified, radical choices for secretary of defense in a very long time”) haven’t merely said they disagree with Hagel or that other nominees would be better. They said flat-out that he’s unfit, uninformed and “radical.” So why in heaven’s name would they help him get confirmed by lifting the filibuster? They cite respect for the president’s ”discretion,” but no discretion is owed to confirm someone unfit for the job, who said he couldn’t or wouldn’t do the job.(Hagel denied he’d be a policymaker or would run anything, pleading that it didn’t matter what he thinks.) > \<…\> > All of that said, Republicans are in this fix because Democrats won’t act responsibly. Recall what happened when President George W. Bush nominated the hapless Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. The opposition party was pushing for her, figuring she’d be a dim pushover. But following in-person meetings on Capitol Hill, it was Republicans, unlike Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and his Democratic friends, who came out not to vouch for her but to say they were concerned and unsatisfied. Republican senators and a grass-roots conservative movement organized against their own president. (We can do better. This is an insult to the institution. She’s in over her head.) And sure enough the White House found a graceful way to end the nomination, saying it couldn’t provide documents needed for confirmation because of executive privilege. So, Ms. Rubin takes McCain and Graham’s statements at face value–apparently unaware of the kind of incendiary rhetoric these two clowns trade in on a daily basis–then re-writes history on the Harriet Miers nomination to make a false comparison with Hagel (The opposition party was pushing for her? Outside of Harry Reid the Dems were pretty unified in opposition. And her rejection from the right was largely because there was no record of her true conservative credentials–they were afraid she’d be another Souter–rather than any pious platitude that “we can do better”). I’m no fan of Hagel–he strikes me as a dim-bulb career bureaucrat–but let’s stop pretending that the filibuster of his nomination (the only thing Rubin got right in her article; this is a filibuster, no matter how the right tries to spin this) is anything but [petty grudge-settling](http://carloz.newsvine.com/_news/2013/02/15/16975007-mccain-says-republicans-opposing-hagel-because-he-was-mean-to-bush): > [@](#): > > But to be honest with you, Neil, it goes back to there’s a lot of ill will towards Senator Hagel because when he was a Republican, he attacked President Bush mercilessly and said he was the worst President since Herbert Hoover and said the surge was the worst blunder since the Vietnam War, which was nonsense. He was anti-his own party and people — people don’t forget that. You can disagree but if you’re disagreeable, then people don’t forget that. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364/60 "2013-02-18T20:40:18Z")
Let’s take a moment to contemplate how mind-blowing it is that John McCain would criticize anybody for being disagreeable. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-block-vote-on-hagel-wtf/650364.md?page=4)