A Staggeringly Poor Performance...
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2013 1:21 am
I had Chuck Hagel's confirmation hearing on in the background while I was working today....
Let me begin by saying that Chuck Hagel is an indisputably decent and honorable man, as well as a genuine war hero...(he was wounded twice serving as a a noncom in Vietnam)
But man, I hafta to tell ya...
He certainly didn't do the cause for his nomination to be the next Secretary of Defense any favors today....
It was as though the man walked into the committee hearing room today, without having done any preparation whatsoever for the questions that would be coming his way....as though he hadn't even read a single news report about what the lines of inquiry were likely to be, and hadn't prepared any answers for them...
This is all the more astonishing given the fact that the man spent 12 years in the United States Senate, sat on committees that confirmed nominees, and should have had a pretty good working knowledge of how the process works, and what would distinguish good preparation from bad, (or in this case, godawful) preparation...
Where to begin...
He couldn't give a straight answer even on questions about how he had voted on bills and resolutions, that were clear cut matters of public record, (not why he voted the way he did, just admitting to how he voted)
He complained at one point that he couldn't remember everything he had said in the past 20 years...(well of course not, but he'd had weeks to prepare for this hearing, and the likely areas of inquiry...statements about Israel, his votes on Iran sanctions and terrorist organization designations, his attitude towards acceptability of the Iranians developing a nuclear bomb, etc., shouldn't have come as news to him....they were in all the papers...he should have been prepared to field questions about them effectively)
He fumbled around so badly, that he not only wound up apologizing for things he had said years earlier, (or being perplexingly evasive...like when he couldn't give a yes or no answer John McCain when asked whether or not he thought he had been wrong when he called the surge in Iraq, "the worst military mistake the country has made since Vietnam") he wound up having to apologize for things he said earlier in the hearing...(like when he called the Iranian regime the "legitimate elected government of Iran" and later in the hearing corrected himself, saying that he should have said "recognized" rather than "legitimate")
Another time he talked about how he supports the Obama Administration's "containment policy" regarding Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, (that isn't the policy; the policy is that it is unacceptable and will not be permitted to happen) later, he said that as Secretary of Defense, he wouldn't have a role in making policy, and that what he thought, "didn't matter"....
Some Democratic members of the committee, (most notably Committee Chairman Carl Levin) attempted gamely to engage in what in a courtroom would be called "re-direct"...where you try to get your witness to undo some of the damage he's done to himself in cross examination....
It was Levin who pointed out to him that he misspoke when he talked about "containment" vis a vis Iran, and also said, "Senator, I'm sure when you said that your 'opinions don't matter' you didn't really mean that... what you meant to say was that final decisions are made by the President" ...
In watching this unfold, I went from puzzlement, to amusement, to finally feeling sorry for the guy....Forget about pros like McCain and Graham taking him apart, even the newly elected Tea Party darling from Texas, Ted Cruz ate his lunch....
The tape of this hearing ought to be kept andshown to future nominees as a primer of what not to do when you are up for a major cabinet post....
Of course, all of this in the end may not matter, because the fix may be in with enough Democratic votes for his nomination, no matter how bad his performance was today....
Assuming there isn't a filibuster...and I have to say that Hagel today provided a lot of justification for one that may not have existed previously...now the question isn't just about previous votes or positions; it's about whether or not the man is up to the job.
Let me begin by saying that Chuck Hagel is an indisputably decent and honorable man, as well as a genuine war hero...(he was wounded twice serving as a a noncom in Vietnam)
But man, I hafta to tell ya...
He certainly didn't do the cause for his nomination to be the next Secretary of Defense any favors today....
It was as though the man walked into the committee hearing room today, without having done any preparation whatsoever for the questions that would be coming his way....as though he hadn't even read a single news report about what the lines of inquiry were likely to be, and hadn't prepared any answers for them...
This is all the more astonishing given the fact that the man spent 12 years in the United States Senate, sat on committees that confirmed nominees, and should have had a pretty good working knowledge of how the process works, and what would distinguish good preparation from bad, (or in this case, godawful) preparation...
Where to begin...
He couldn't give a straight answer even on questions about how he had voted on bills and resolutions, that were clear cut matters of public record, (not why he voted the way he did, just admitting to how he voted)
He complained at one point that he couldn't remember everything he had said in the past 20 years...(well of course not, but he'd had weeks to prepare for this hearing, and the likely areas of inquiry...statements about Israel, his votes on Iran sanctions and terrorist organization designations, his attitude towards acceptability of the Iranians developing a nuclear bomb, etc., shouldn't have come as news to him....they were in all the papers...he should have been prepared to field questions about them effectively)
He fumbled around so badly, that he not only wound up apologizing for things he had said years earlier, (or being perplexingly evasive...like when he couldn't give a yes or no answer John McCain when asked whether or not he thought he had been wrong when he called the surge in Iraq, "the worst military mistake the country has made since Vietnam") he wound up having to apologize for things he said earlier in the hearing...(like when he called the Iranian regime the "legitimate elected government of Iran" and later in the hearing corrected himself, saying that he should have said "recognized" rather than "legitimate")
Another time he talked about how he supports the Obama Administration's "containment policy" regarding Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, (that isn't the policy; the policy is that it is unacceptable and will not be permitted to happen) later, he said that as Secretary of Defense, he wouldn't have a role in making policy, and that what he thought, "didn't matter"....
Some Democratic members of the committee, (most notably Committee Chairman Carl Levin) attempted gamely to engage in what in a courtroom would be called "re-direct"...where you try to get your witness to undo some of the damage he's done to himself in cross examination....
It was Levin who pointed out to him that he misspoke when he talked about "containment" vis a vis Iran, and also said, "Senator, I'm sure when you said that your 'opinions don't matter' you didn't really mean that... what you meant to say was that final decisions are made by the President" ...
In watching this unfold, I went from puzzlement, to amusement, to finally feeling sorry for the guy....Forget about pros like McCain and Graham taking him apart, even the newly elected Tea Party darling from Texas, Ted Cruz ate his lunch....
The tape of this hearing ought to be kept andshown to future nominees as a primer of what not to do when you are up for a major cabinet post....
Of course, all of this in the end may not matter, because the fix may be in with enough Democratic votes for his nomination, no matter how bad his performance was today....
Assuming there isn't a filibuster...and I have to say that Hagel today provided a lot of justification for one that may not have existed previously...now the question isn't just about previous votes or positions; it's about whether or not the man is up to the job.