McCain and Hagel in 2004

Speaking to Fox News host Neil Cavuto, McCain said that he still believed that Hagel would get the votes required to be confirmed. What followed was the clearest indication yet that he’s still bitter that Hagel turned against the Iraq War:

McCAIN: 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 say 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.

Watch McCain’s statements here:

McCain had just voted “no” on the bid to end debate on Hagel’s nomination, supporting the Republican filibuster. Just days ago, McCain insisted that he would do no such thing, and is currently claiming that he’ll vote to break the filibuster following the Senate’s President’s Day recess ten days from now.

The two, formerly close friends, faced off during Hagel’s confirmation hearing over the success of the 2007 surge in Iraq, highlighting McCain’s lingering frustrations with the former Republican Senator from Nebraska. That frustration is shared among many of Hagel’s other opponents, including the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, forming the backbone of neoconservative opposition to his confirmation. McCain is right, however, that once the filibuster breaks Hagel is still set to be confirmed in an up-or-down vote.

Senate Republicans today chose to uphold a filibuster against Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel, despite many of them previously pledging that they would be willing to allow him to be confirmed.

Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), and John Cornyn (R-TX) all voted against cloture, despite their pleas during the Bush administration that a president’s Cabinet nominees should receive an up-or-down vote.

Four Republicans, Sens. Thad Cochran (R-MS), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Mike Johanns (R-NE), voted to break the filibuster. The final vote was 58-40, with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) voting present, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) not voting at all, and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) voting “no” as a procedural move so that he can bring another vote to the floor at a later date.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had originally scheduled the cloture vote for tomorrow morning, but surprised many by pushing it up to this afternoon. Earlier today, Reid took to the Senate floor to lambaste his Republican colleagues for delaying an up-or-down vote on Hagel, the first filibuster of a Secretary of Defense nominee.

Prior to the roll call’s beginning, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) attempted to explain that the vote that was set to take place was the vote “to confirm Chuck Hagel,” rather than merely being a procedural vote. Inhofe also claimed that a 60-vote margin was common practice, rendering the actions of the Republicans not a filibuster. However, the motion was still filed by Reid as cloture — the ending of debate — rather than the actual confirmation of Hagel, as laid out be Levin before voting. This leaves the door open for Hagel’s nomination to remain on the Senate floor and renders the GOP’s actions a filibuster under the Senate’s rules.

While Senate Republicans are opposed to voting on Hagel today, they seem to believe that they’ll change their minds after the Senate returns from its President’s Day recess in 10 days. This morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that he expected to be willing to move Hagel forward at that time, “unless there’s some bombshell that he likes blood sucking vampires.” Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and John McCain (R-AZ) said roughly the same thing today, leaving their votes against Hagel today confusing.

The hope for such a bombshell emerging seems far less than likely. A speech given by Hagel in 2008 that conservatives have long-sought as evidence that Hagel falls far outside of the mainstream was released today, turning out to be a dud. Likewise right-wing implications that Hagel was secretly being backed by a group called “Friends of Hamas” also proved to be utterly false, fabricated on a far-right media outlet.

After today’s filibuster, the Senate will reconsider Hagel after their break. While today’s vote showed that the GOP was willing to obstruct and delay, they ultimately will be unable to do this forever. In the end, Hagel still possesses more than the majority vote needed for final passage.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)

During the meeting, Cruz objected to moving forward with Hagel’s nomination, saying — without offering any evidence — that the former Republican senator may have received money directly from countries like North Korea and Saudi Arabia.

“This Senator feels like that Senator Cruz has gone over the line,” Nelson shot back at Cruz. “He basically has impugned the patriotism of the nominee.” The Florida Democrat continued:

NELSON: In your conclusions which you are entitled to come to about him in essence about him being cozy with Iran. And you have also stated your opinion that you don’t think he has been truthful with this committee. Now those are two fairly strong statements. And I couldn’t help but having had the privilage of serving on this committee for a while, and seeing the two former chairman on either side of the nominee and I looked at the former Repubican chairman John Warner’s face as some of the questions were asked as he visibly winced. There’s a certain degree of comity and civility that this committee has always been known for. And clearly in the sharpness difference of opinion to question in essence whether somebody is a fellow traveler with another country I think is taking it too far.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) piled on: “I just want to make it clear. Senator Hagel is an honorable man. He has served his country and no one on this committee at any time should impugn his character or his integrity,” he said. Watch the clip:

(Photo: AP)

McCain, an ardent supporter of the Iraq War from the start, began his questioning of Hagel by asking about the latter’s past statements regarding the so-called “surge” of forces into Iraq in 2007. Hagel, by then a vocal critic of the war, came out strongly against adding additional troops to the conflict soon after the policy’s announcement — just like President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had — calling it “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam.”

Hagel didn’t back away from previous statements, saying “Senator, I stand by them, because I made them.” When McCain continued to push Hagel, refusing to allow him to offer a nuanced response to the question of the surge, the Nebraska Republican shot back, noting that the surge tactic took place in the wider context of the most “dangerous decision since Vietnam”:

MCCAIN: Are you going to answer the question? Were you right or wrong? That’s a straightforward question. Answer whether you are right or wrong and then you are free to elaborate.

HAGEL: I’m not going to give you a yes or no answer.

MCCAIN: Let the record show he refuses to answer the question. Please go ahead.

[...]

HAGEL: I’m not going to give you a yes or no. It’s far more complicated than that. I will defer that judgment to history. As to the comment I made about the most dangerous foreign policy decision since Vietnam, that was about not just the surge, but the overall war of choice going into Iraq. That particular decision made on the surge, but more to the point, our war in Iraq, I think was the most fundamentally bad, dangerous decision since Vietnam.

Watch their exchange here:

“Aside from the cost that occurred to blood and treasure, what that did to take our focus off of Afghanistan, which in fact was the original and real focus of the national threat to this country. Iraq was not. I always tried to frame all of the different issues before I made a decision on anything,” Hagel continued. Hagel’s response is a continuation of his previous assertions that the war in Iraq is one of the “great blunders” of American history.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) picked up on Hagel’s critique in his questioning, referring to Iraq as a war that never should have taken place. “I always ask the question is this going to be worth the sacrifice, because there will be sacrifice,” Hagel said in response. “In the surge in Iraq, we lost almost 1200 dead Americans and thousands of wounded. Was it required? Was it necessary?” Over four thousand Americans total lost their lives during the Iraq War.
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