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Urge Your Senator to Filibuster Chuck Hagel’s Nomination

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  February 14th, 2013 at 01:39 PM  | 

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Senate Republicans currently have the votes to filibuster Chuck Hagel, but John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and others are going wobbly. There is no reason for Hagel to be Secretary of Defense and it is not just Republicans who should filibuster him, but Senators Pryor, Landrieu, and Senate Democrats from red states.

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Chuck Hagel is wrong on Israel, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, nukes, the Defense Department budget and the surge. He is the wrong man for Defense.

Call your Senator. Tell him or her to join the Republicans in their filibuster of Chuck Hagel. He is on the wrong side of history on too many subjects to be Secretary of Defense.

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  • gawken

    To date, TWO GOP senators, Thad Cochran and Mike Johanns, have already, and rather stupidly, announced that they will vote to confirm Hagel. Cochran is up in 2014, and unless he retires, he should be primaried on the basis of this one vote alone.

  • oldmanrick

    Good grief, the senate approved Scary marxist Kerry. What makes one think the same DS, idiotic senate wont approve marxist Hagel. The senate is nothing more than a bunch of worthless eunuchs.

  • septembergurl

    So far cochran, Johanns and Collins are the R yes votes (ie for cloture). Are there 2 other yes R votes out there?

  • septembergurl

    Murkowski is another.

  • electconstitutionalists

    My main reason for opposing him isn’t so much his positions, because Obama makes the real choices. Instead the real problem is competance. I have no faith in him running the massive defense department.

  • mkeprof

    Whatever Hagel might believe, however inept he might be – at the end he is nothing but a vehicle for Obama’s policies. Even if we have someone else as SecDef – that person will also be a vehicle for Obama’s policies. So I really don’t see the point of making a fuss over a cabinet nominee. All this is political theater without any benefit to anybody – and hence entirely useless. By all means vote against the nomination – but I would rather that they not block/filibuster it. Vote and move forward to the issues that will actually make a difference to the future of the people and the country.

    The fact remains that Hagel used to have an R after his name, that is is a combat veteran and for a good portion of the electorate – a respectable individual. Us blocking him comes across as petulant and unproductive to a majority of people (I think – I don’t have any hard data). We are cashing much needed political chips on a fight we should not be fighting.

  • mkeprof

    So the cloture vote failed. 41 senators voted against the motion to proceed. Erick – your objective is thus achieved. What do you propose we do now? Keep blocking and keep getting bludgeoned with the “obstructionist” hammer?

    Obama is not going to back off after this public fight. So what is the end game? Or is there no end game and we are all playing for only temporary, instant gratification victories now??

  • bantamwait

    Which underscores another problematic aspect of this demonstration: Panetta is to the left of Hagel on probably 90% of issues. Do you think that Hagel would have pushed an end to DADT, or endorsed putting women into combat with the same relish as Panetta? We’re talking extreme liberal vs. lifelong Nebraska Republican. Contrversial views? He’s tougher on Iran than Ollie North and a bigger supporter of Israel than Pat Buchanan. Not my first choice, but then, we don’t get to pick the cabinet this time.

  • Bill S

    No, I tell you what – why don’t YOU tell us what YOU want to do? No – wait – that’s probably not necessary. Every comment you’ve posted favors the GOP caving in some way. So are you a Republican/conservative or just a moby here to stir up stuff?

    But I guess you should respond anyway. I eagerly await your response on what you think the GOP should do – other than give in on every single policy question.

  • norris

    Hagel is not good for America or any place else . Let Obama find another puppet . Why reward Hagel for bad judgement ?

  • leftylurker

    Lefty here to confirm this. I can’t stand Hagel. I’m actually glad tactically that the Republican’s blocked his nomination. All you’re doing is showing the center/left that Obama can’t do anything that the Republican’s approve of. I mean, for goodness sake, Senator Hagel got an overall 81% conservative rating when you aggregate his scores from conservative groups.

    http://senator-conservative-ratings.findthedata.org/l/30/Chuck-Hagel

    And to be fair, I have voted Republican in my time. Most notably McCain in 2000 and Snyder in 2010.

  • The_Gadfly

    POTUS sets policy, but only after receiving the advice of his advisers. The job of the adviser until the point at which the President sets policy is to advocate for his Department and his Department’s position as strongly as he possibly can. As someone whose voting record shows him opposed to the keystones of US defense policy, Hagel is incapable of fulfilling that role. He was chosen by The Big 0 precisely because he use to have an R behind his name regardless of how out of step with that party he has since revealed himself to be.

  • Jim_Riggs

    I am.

  • katem

    Have to disagree. For a smart guy, Cruz is acting and sounding foolish. His comments about Hagel were unfounded and rightly called out by McCain and others. Cruz doesn’t help the conservative cause at all by voting against John Kerry (elections have consequences, after all) and saying ridiculous things about Hagel. Cruz has been in office for about a month and already some folks on our side of the aisle are mentioning him as a potential 2016 presidential candidate, which is laughable.

  • katem

    Hagel didn’t come across well in his hearing, and I certainly don’t think he’s the best candidate for Sec’y of Defense. But elections have consequences and presidents should be entitled to have the cabinet secretaries they want, except in rare circumstances. Hagel will be carrying out Obama’s policies, not his own. He will serve for at most 4 years; it’s not a lifetime appointment like Supreme Court judgeships are. Therefore, presidential nominees for cabinet secretaries should be given greater deference than nominees for the judiciary. GOP senators who vote to confirm Hagel should NOT be primaried for such vote.

  • runner12

    Given his anti-Semitic statements and his statement on gays, he is winning no popularity contests with the center/left no matter what you might say. And the Senate confirmed Kerry, which debunks the obstructionist myth.

    Good grief, even the MSM is painting this guy for the jerk he is and they are no friends to Conservatives. Every network led with his incompetent hearing. Many were even speculating that Obama might abandon him after that. It was a debacle and a disgrace. This guy is winning no popularity contests on either side. If anything, this is showing people that the GOP stands on conviction and does not just support a guy because he is a Republican.

    Nice try though to spin it against Conservatives. But this won’t fly in this case. The guy is too unlikeable and he embarassed himself at the hearing.

  • runner12

    Um..Why? The man has made the most anti-Semetic comments.

  • joshinca

    Whatever Hagel might believe, however inept he might be – at the end he is nothing but a vehicle for Obama’s policies.

    Yep.

    And the truth is that even if Hagel is blocked Obama’s next nominee will sail through, even if he is worse.

    A filibuster of Hagel would make sense if he had been nominated by a squishy RINO like McCain, but is pointless withan Obama presidency.

  • joshinca

    So who would conservatives rather have implementing Obama’s agenda,

    The doddering fool Hagel or some yet to be named player?

    Personally, I’ll take the certain fool over the possibility of an effective marxist of fellow traveler.

    And before y’all accuse me of wanting to see America’s military fail I’ll point out that the president, not the SoD controls the nation’s military strategy and the services and not the SoD controls the tactics including RoE.

  • MiamiDave

    Thank you, Erick, for rallying the troops. Thank you, RedState, for fighting this fight. The prospect of Hagel as Secretary of Defense is, for lack of a better word, terrifying. He supports a foreign and defensive policy in which we bend the knee to, and beg a seat at the table with, those Nations who despise us and wish to do us and our allies harm. Further, he is ready and willing to stand watch over President Obama’s gutting of our Defense Department to fund his ever-expansive welfare state. His nomination should be opposed by ever member of our Party.

  • MiamiDave

    Actually, I think he helped our cause tremendously by voting against John Kerry. Elections do, indeed, have consequences; the people of the great State of Texas elected Mr. Cruz to stand up for conservative principles, and to stand against men like John Kerry and President Obama. We should be fighting this President at every single turn, and I am quite proud that our caucus has Senators like Cruz who seem ready to do it.

  • davesinsanantonio

    We have a SecDef—his name is Leon Panetta. He said he will stay until his replacement is confirmed. He may not be our ideal, but he has been in place long enough to keep things running.

  • davesinsanantonio

    So, senators, who are also put into office by those same elections which have consequences, should just roll over to a president? I don’t see the logic of your argument.

  • davesinsanantonio

    Did any Dems vote against cloture?

  • davesinsanantonio

    True in many ways for many senators, but it seems there are many commenters here who think they should be even more so.

  • davesinsanantonio

    The problem with accepting fools in charge of anything is that they make foolish decisions. And, you can never tell in advance which direction those foolish decisions will go. At least with ideologues you know what they will do and can this prepare to resist. But, fools can take you by surprise.

  • OhioHistorian

    Couldn’t disagree more. Regardless of beliefs, you want someone who is truthful. Hagel wouldn’t even stand up and admit what he said and did. Your attitude is exactly how we got Panetta. How did Benghazi work out under him? How has Afghanistan worked out under him? The question is: will we be better with no SecDef than Hagel? I believe that we will.

    This attitude of “wasting a filibuster” is stupidity. Use the thing every time you need to do so.

  • OhioHistorian

    How did Kerry get confirmed, then? How about two Supreme Court nominations? How about Eric Holder? How about the stimulus? The Republicans in the Senate haven’t even shut down business when Reid refuses to bring up a budget for a vote (except for Obamas, and none of YOU guys voted for that rotten piece of stinking fish either). Hagel and several NLRB members are about what Obama has lost on, as compared with Bush not even getting his nominee for the United Nations. For you to make such a comment is dishonest and that is what is notably true of the left..

  • Jim_Riggs

    That’s ridiculous.

  • ww2nd95

    I agree with you. Use it every time you need it. This isn’t one of those times. Do you honestly think Obama isn’t going to nominate someone who isn’t going to follow his agenda? You can say we’ll be better off w/o a ec of Def, but we all know that isn’t going to happen. You keep Obama from getting a Sec of Def nomination for 2 years, we will pay a price in 2014 for nothing! The media is already playing this up and it will get worse and worse the longer it goes. I may fire up the base, but it does nothing for the rest of the country. All the country sees is “Senate Republicans continue to block Presidential nominees”.

    How many times do we filibuster before we look like the obstructionists Obama is trying to paint us as? We can tell the public we’re doing it for the country to block Obama’s agenda, then Obama says “I was elected by you! And they’re keeping me from doing the job you elected me to do.. We deserve a vote blah blah blah” and then what? 2012 didn’t work out for us very well and if we filibuster everything under the sun again, it may not work out in 2014, and we’ll get the Harry Truman treatment as a “do nothing Congress”.. So yes, I do think there is a limit on the number of times the filibuster gets used before we get bludgeoned with it.

  • katem

    The people of the United States (not including me) voted for Obama. Kerry and Hagel are Obama’s choices for cabinet secretaries. They would not be the choice of many of us here were we in the position to make such appointments. But, barring something serious in a nominee’s record or views, he or she should be confirmed. We always have to keep in mind that the pendulum swings back and forth and a Republican will be in the White House again. That Republican president should be entitled to his choice of cabinet secretaries. Senators from Massachusetts and other blue states should not vote no on them simply because they have a different ideology, which appears to be why Cruz voted against Kerry.

  • Kyle-MI

    Then why have Senate confirmation at all? The Senate shouldn’t be a rubber stamp for any president. And the opposition shouldn’t vote for confirmation unless the nominee is really and truly qualified.

    Hagel shows that Obama is lazy and doesn’t care about the DOD. Obama only nominated him purely for political advantage. It is right both politically and morally for the GOP to make the Dems fight for this incompetent moron.

  • paleen

    To filibuster this is just going to play into dems plan to get rid of the filibuster. It should not be used to block nominations like this. Yes vote against him but if you stop him Obama will just get somebody just as bad or worse. To make the change we need we have to get rid of Obama.

  • whitetop

    Cruz is acting as promised when he ran as a Tea Party candidate. McCain carried out his vendata against Hagel in committee hearings then cautions against the filibuster so his democrat friends will think honorable of him. McCain needs to be in a home where he can be watched over. We have too many like him at a time we need more like Cruz.

  • rabun1016

    I am sick of the notices of filibuster being filed. This practice made it too easy for the Democrats those days when we were in power. If we are going to do this, let’s talk. We need the practice communicating, that is for sure.

  • rabun1016

    Bill S, modern guy, I give you credit for smoking this out.

  • contrarycontent

    Agreed, the vote against Kerry was ridiculous.

    Lieutenant Gov. of Massachusetts…Nearly three decades in the Senate…Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations…Democratic Nominee for President (3 million votes from the Presidency).

    And a freshman Senator says John Kerry is not fit to be Secretary of State, based on nothing but ideology? Looks bush league.

  • Viet71

    Erick,

    I like your comments on religion.

    On politics, I sometimes differ.

    Hegel is no worse than Panetta. He is basically honest.

    I dislike war. Hegel is OK, IMO.

  • katem

    Agree that the Senate shouldn’t rubber stamp nominees. But, for non-lifetime-appointees, such as cabinet secretaries, there should be a good amount of deference to a sitting president. We Republicans will want that from Democratic Senators when the next GOP president is elected. I would flip your third sentence and say that the opposition party should not vote no unless there is serious cause to reject a nominee.

  • katem

    I expected better from Cruz than what he has shown in the first month. He is in danger of being viewed as unserious and playing to the fringe. Too bad, because he is a smart guy. I thought he’d be more thoughtful than he is showing himself to be. He needs to know which battles to pick. Voting no on Kerry was foolish, esp. after Obama’s reported first choice, Susan Rice, was essentially forced to withdraw her name from consideration.

  • plh

    Yes, elections have consequences. So what? Why can’t Senator Cruz or any other Senator vote his/her conscience?

  • plh

    So let them be confirmed with Democrat votes only. Why go along just to get along?

  • runner12

    Kate, you do realize that it is the Senate’s job to vote the way they see fit and not just go along with the President, right? It is called the balance of powers. You may want to a). Read the Constitution again b). Review basic American Civics.

    Your arguments on this board regarding this are illogical and reveal a misunderstanding of how our government is set up to function. Your attacks on Cruz have been preposterous.

  • Bill S

    Any other Democrats whose butts you’d like him to kiss?

    Cruz is doing precisely what we at Redstate supported him to do, and what the state of Texas voted for.

    If you prefer the gentle style of Mitch McConnell, perhaps you’re on the wrong site.

  • katem

    If you have to resort to name calling, you’ve lost the argument.

    I do not “hate” Cruz and did not say I did. As a conservative, I like to see conservatives win elections and then succeed in office. I don’t like watching conservatives make themselves either fodder for jokes from the left or unelectable in a general election. Cruz is a Harvard Law grad and a smart guy. But his comments about Hagel in the past week hurt, not helped, him. And that’s too bad. Bad for not only him but also for the Republican party.

    You’re entitled to your view and I respect that some will hold different views about Sen. Cruz. But try to show a little respect for conservatives who might have a different take on things than you do.

  • PowerToThePeople

    You mistake a factual statement for an argument. You hold yourself and your comments in too high of esteem if you think you are capable of even being in an argument. You also mistake us for being idiots if you think we are going to show any respect for you or the stupidity you keep posting.

    You and your comments are jokes and it is sad you feel the need to keep repeating them again and again.

  • PowerToThePeople

    Perfectly stated.

  • Melody Warbington

    “We Republicans will want that [deference to a sitting president] when the next GOP president is elected.”

    Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. /sarc

  • Melody Warbington

    Would that all of our elected officials were like Senator Cruz. Best money I spent last year was donating to his campaign.

  • Bill S

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    :deep breath:

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    Whew.

    Are you naive or just stupid? “Deference”? GMAB. You mean like the “deference” they gave to GWB?

    I’ve read some bizarre assertions on these comment threads over the years, but this one tops them all.

  • Kyle-MI

    Not to pile on, but when have Dems ever reciprocated any act of good will that the GOP has done? Doing something in hopes that the Dems will do likewise is the worst reason for doing anything in politics.

  • westhouston

    Well, my Senators are Ted Cruz and John Cornyn. I know where Ted is on this one – after all, I helped get him through the primary, primary runoff and general election to win his seat.
    I might drop a line to Cornyn, though – just in case.

  • westhouston

    I follow your logic.
    But, please consider: They will paint Republicans as obstructionists no matter how much they cave in!
    Better to be hung for a lion than for a lamb.
    We will be called obstructionists no matter what.
    So, let’s be the BIGGEST, BADEST OBSTRUCTIONISTS we possibly can!
    And tell the brainwashed media: Be Careful What You Wish For!

  • westhouston

    I stand with Ted Cruz. You who doubt can go to the infernal reaches.

  • WestHoustonGeo

    The’ “obsructionist” hammer’, as you put it. will be there no matter what!
    Embrace the “Obsructionist Hammer” and STOP THEM from destroying America!

  • WestHoustonGeo

    Can’t edit so I’ll repeat, with corrections:
    The’ “obstructionist” hammer’, as you put it. Will be there no matter what!
    Embrace the “Obstructionist Hammer” and STOP THEM from destroying America!

  • WestHoustonGeo

    I am Damned Proud to have supported Ted Cruz, early in the Primaries. I talked him up amonst my friends and contributed my own money and asked my friends for more. We got him through the Primary, the Primary run-off and the General Election.
    He has done EXACTLY as he promised and I couldn’t be happier.
    You who hate Ted and I can go visit the Infernal Reaches!

  • mkeprof

    I will respond – in fact I will write a diary when I get the permission to do so. I am not an imposter – I am here because I want good ideas to succeed. I might not agree with everything on this site – but I agree with most of it – one of the main things I do not agree with is the way we are fighting the current battle. You would note that I am challenging the tactics – the method of fighting – and not the goal. The goal is to win elections and implement our policies – the right policies – and I believe that our current tactics are costing us a chance to do that.

  • Bill S

    Your commenting history flies in the face of this claim.

    But I’ll tell you what – I’ll approve your diary request. And if it doesn’t come across as a smarmy, McConnell-esque apologetic for watered-down quasi-conservatism, you won’t get the axe.

    (Just checked the diary queue and I don’t see one for you. Check your email and see if one got approved…may have been that someone else did it)

  • mkeprof

    My diary request is approved. I will compose my thoughts in next couple days. Looking forward to your feedback when I publish.

  • westcoastpatriette

    Can’t wait to see this one, Bill S.

  • sliverlining

    Hagel confuses me. Is he a hypocrite? Is he an opportunist? Why side with the most hypocritical and opportunistic president and yes-men team is modern history if he himself is not? What is there for McCain and Graham to go “wobbly” about?

    Last question: Why am I CONSTANTLY being asked to have my representation in Washington to actually REPRESENT me?

    Take a stand you milguetoast morons! The worst that can happen is you lose your job. Big deal. You guys are famous (probably never really have to work a day the rest of your lives) and if you needed another job just point at a website or newspaper and that’s your resume. I see more backbone in a fast food server than these protected wimps! They sicken me.