Schumer: You know, I won’t commit to supporting Hagel
posted at 9:01 am on December 24, 2012 by Ed Morrissey
There once was a time when the White House used to carefully vet their potential nominees not just to see whether they qualified for their appointments, but also whether their past statements and positions would end up embarrassing them. At the very least, they’d check in with their own party’s Senate caucus to see whether the nominee would hit serious resistance.
“I’m not going to comment until the President makes a nomination” is code for “Mr. President, don’t make this nomination.” Even Andrea Mitchell figured this much out, although she’s not quite up to speed on why:
“The problem that Chuck Hagel has is … he’s now getting shot at from the left and the right because of his past comments, which he has now retracted and apologized for against gays,” Mitchell explained on NBC.
The comments about gays was only one part of Hagel’s problem, and not the major problem. Much more problematic, especially for Schumer and other members of the Senate, are Hagel’s past statements about a “Jewish lobby” controlling US policy, and stands on Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas that put Hagel to the left of Barack Obama and well into a political fringe.
None of this should have come as a surprise to the White House. Hagel made all of those statements very publicly, and took criticism for them at the time. The Obama administration, however, has been singularly poor at vetting its Cabinet choices. Anyone remember the trial balloons of Bill Richardson and Tom Daschle, for instance? Or the actual appointment of Tim Geithner to run the Treasury Department when he had gotten in trouble for failing to file his income taxes? The Hagel bust isn’t an anomaly; it’s business as usual at the White House.
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As I just posted HotairLib has their whole head up their six o clock.
hamradio on May 24, 2013 at 2:43 PM
Who wrote the speech? Or are you just praising the messenger?
mixplix on May 24, 2013 at 2:57 PM
Connect the dots: journolist meeting by invitation only at the White House on, what Tuesday?, “big”speech by Obama on Thursday, lame stream media fawning over speech on Friday. Who would have seen that coming, huh?
parke on May 24, 2013 at 2:58 PM
They need the “war on terror” in order to further erode our Constitutional freedoms and to deflect criticism from the administration’s and Federal government’s ongoing corruption.
They are just trying to massage it so that they don’t offend the Muslims, international Libtards and their own sensibilities anymore than necessary.
A few Muslim terrorists here and there are quite expendable to this Administration despite their sympathies for them. These drone attacks also do much deflect any potential criticism that the Administration is weak in dealing with such matters.
Dr. ZhivBlago on May 24, 2013 at 2:59 PM
MSNBC is nothing but a left wing propaganda machine serving their master, Obama.
rplat on May 24, 2013 at 3:07 PM
I believe that he was officially nominated 10 days after he was sworn in. Wow! The WON really worked long hours that week and a half to earn that POS medal. During those ten days he ordered NO DRONE STRIKES to keep his peaceful record clean.
fred5678 on May 24, 2013 at 3:22 PM
Obama: Don’t worry about that Ben Ghazi guy. I killed Bin Laden, and Bush didn’t!
And Obummer still wants to close Gitmo? Good luck with that–not even Upchuck Schumer was willing to hold trials in New York!
Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:24 PM
They just changed the definition of terrorist. They used to be jihadis from the Middle East–now they’re Minutemen in Arizona and Tea Partiers in Ohio.
Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:29 PM
Erika, sometimes your writing shows signs of rivaling even the Master of Snark himself, Allahpundit. Good work!
KS Rex on May 24, 2013 at 3:45 PM
I love how crazy Al invoked the Nobel Peace Prize in praise of a speech that spoke about dropping bombs on people’s head. Maybe it was the “fewer” bombs than before that raised this to historic levels.
Do they even know or care that they are morons.
marnes on May 24, 2013 at 3:46 PM
His speech made less sense than Bluto’s Animal House Speech and was far less entertaining. Nothing less than base rallying time. Never thought I would say this, but Code Pink was the best part.
DDay on May 24, 2013 at 4:01 PM
Sperling posted this at the Examiner on May 23 about this “historic speech of Obysmal’s:
You see, we are just not working hard enough to “work with the Muslim American community” who are a “fundamental part of the American family.” Watch out, too, because Obysmal is again trying to limit the impact of the Internet.
onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:22 PM
That Chris Hayes is a bit of a twink, isn’t he?
onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:25 PM
Obama apparently gave two speeches yesterday and I watched the other one.
myiq2xu on May 24, 2013 at 5:03 PM
Nah. I’d detest the little pissant s.o.b. if he was white…or Asian…or any one of the myriad of made-up racial divisions.
Solaratov on May 24, 2013 at 11:00 PM
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