The Republican Senate minority has reached a new low, in rejecting former colleague, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, for Secretary of Defense, as a measure of spite against Hagel for backing Barack Obama in 2008, criticizing the George W. Bush “surge” in Iraq in 2007, and the exploitation of the Benghazi, Libya tragedy as a means to smack the President directly!
Hagel is perfectly qualified to be Secretary of Defense, and to have utilized the filibuster as a means to deny a vote, is reprehensible beyond description! Even Senator John Tower of Texas, a George H. W. Bush appointment as Secretary of Defense in 1989, while rejected for that position in 1989 over womanizing and liquor abuses, had the dignity of going down in an actual vote, rather than the prevention of such a vote, through the dastardly misuse of the filibuster tactic!
The Democrats and Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada had a opportunity to change the filibuster rules, and had no guts or courage, and this is the disastrous result!
The Democrats need to learn to play hardball, since the Republicans fail to understand anything else! They should be ashamed at their weakness, and the Republicans, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, once again, prove how unprincipled and despicable they are in their “war” on the Obama Administration! They have no common decency, and it is clear that any attempt at bipartisanship over the next two years is out of the question!
So Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who already has had a farewell at the Pentagon, will have to stay on longer, until another attempt at overcoming the filibuster on Hagel is attempted, or Hagel withdraws, and another individual is selected to head the Defense Department.