Senate Committee Approves Hagel On Party Line Vote
The Senate Armed Services Committee voted today to send Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be Secretary of Defense to the full Senate on a party line vote, and after a hearing in which the contentiousness between committee members was palpable:
(Reuters) – A Senate panel approved Chuck Hagel as President Barack Obama’s new secretary of defense on Tuesday, setting the stage for a vote on his confirmation by the full Senate as soon as later this week.
The Senate Armed Services Committee voted 14-11, with one senator voting “no instruction,” along party lines to approve the former Nebraska Republican senator’s confirmation to succeed Leon Panetta as the leader at the Pentagon.
The day began with the somewhat unusual event of every member of the committee being given the opportunity to explain their vote beforehand. As you could expect, Republican members of the Committee continued their bizarre assault on Hagel’s past statements on Israel and Iran. What was truly interesting,, though, was the rather obvious extent of just how raw the nerves of many members on both sides of the aisle have become over this nomination. One wonders what this will mean going forward.
Right now, it’s expected that the Senate will vote on Hagel’s nomination on Thursday.
That we’re looking at a repeat of the years 2009-2012? Just sayin’.
HTF is this bizarre? This is how the GOP does business. They don’t give a crap about governing, they want to hurt Obama. Period.
Have you not figured this out yet?
Sounds like business as usual for the Republicans. The party of incoherent obstruction strikes again.
Fiona :catblink:
So, not a single Republican had enough respect for a former colleague to vote for his confirmation?
What a pathetic malevolent excuse for a party that wants to govern this country.
@al-Ameda:
What makes you think they want to govern? They haven’t governed in decades. Why start now?
I don’t understand the outrage at a party line vote.
The democrats voted against almost every appointee Bush ever made.
It is politics in America and pretty much par for the course.
Hagel IMO is a terrible nomination-Obama’s choice, but in general I think Obama is setting him up to be his gop fall guy to take the heat when the military cuts begin and Obama can point as say “Hey he was a republican.”
And if a GOP president had made the nomination, the democrats would have been screaming all about homophobia.
HTF is this bizarre? Dude is a clown that comes across as a drunk clown! Chuck Hagel, lol….
@Just Me:
“The democrats voted against almost every appointee Bush ever made.”
You mean like (just taking the Defense Secretaries) Robert Gates (unanimous in Committee, 96-2 on Senate floor) or Donald Rumsfeld (confirmed by voice vote). Do you ever have any facts correct?
Moosebreath, Chuck Hagel, lol….
@G.A.Phillips:
This from a guy with a nose picking platypus for an avatar….
Do you ever have any facts correct?
Gonzalez was a 10-8 vote out of committee.
Rice received he most negative votes since Haig in 1981 when she was confirmed.
Bolton, committe vote was 10-8.
And judges were even worse.
I could go on.
Party line votes aren’t unique-especially out of committee and especially in the political climate of the last 13 years.
When you’re longing for the days of Bill Cohen and Harold Brown the inescapable conclusion is that the country truly has slipped. Can you fathom the reaction among the chattering classes if a Republican had nominated to a major cabinet post a guy who at various times has made homophobic, anti-Semitic and patently irrational comments and then showed up at his confirmation hearing so unprepared and loopy it actually was sad? Yikes.
In any event, elections have consequences and Hagel is going to be confirmed. Team Obama appears hell bent on drawing down the military, so I guess Hagel’s primary role will be to serve as a fall guy in waiting. Henry Stimson is rolling over in his grave, but the brutal reality is that that sort of America faded away a long time ago and won’t be returning.
@Just Me:
“Party line votes aren’t unique-especially out of committee and especially in the political climate of the last 13 years.”
Gonzales was confirmed 60-36 (actually the largest margin of Bush’s AG’s). Rice 85-13. The 3 AG’s, Rice and Gale Norton (for Interior) were the only Bush nominees who received more than 5 no votes against them among all of Bush’s Cabinet appointees. link
Care to revise and extend your remarks?
“Party line votes aren’t unique-especially out of committee and especially in the political climate of the last 13 years.”
Notice the bold.
And when Rice was confirmed as secretary of state she had the most no votes since 1825 (link: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6862922/#.URvcH_KC9mo
So I will reiterate my point. Party line votes aren’t unique to the GOP. The democrats made a habit of it with many of Bush’s nominees.
Hagel will be confirmed and he will likely be confirmed along party line votes (I figure he will get just around 60 to 65 votes).
@Just Me:
“So I will reiterate my point. Party line votes aren’t unique to the GOP. The democrats made a habit of it with many of Bush’s nominees.”
Both Rice and Norton received more than half of the votes of Democrats (and in Rice’s case roughly 3/4), meaning they were not party line votes. So your point is valid only if your definition of “made a habit of it” applies when it occurs less than 10% of the time Cabinet nominees receive a vote. In the world the rest of us live in, it doesn’t.
@Moosebreath:
And remember, this exchange began with “The democrats voted against almost every appointee Bush ever made.” So to just me “almost every” means less than 10% at the Cabinet level.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Actually, not sure if you have noticed, but his avatar is a troll.
Which I guess he picked because it is what he is.
Gonzalez and Bolton were sick jokes in their respective positions and Rice helped to get us into Iraq by talking about smoking guns and mushroom clouds…yes, please do go on…
Yes, of course, because anyone who isn’t personally kissing Bibi Netanyahu’s ass is “anti-Semitic”…
@Moosebreath: You’re talking about confirmation votes before the entire Senate. Just Me is talking about the committee votes before the confirmation goes to the Senate.
@Just Me:
Rice had 9/11 on her watch and Iraq war shenanigans, all of which didn’t even come to light before her confirmation.
Bolton is fairly anathema to liberal politics. Notice he endorses the Obama drone policy, something a good deal of Obama’s base isn’t comfortable with.
Gonzales was genuine party-line, but given the attorney dismissal scandal of ’07, I doubt any of the dissenters regret their vote.
Of course, the nomination fight over Hagel is symbolically overblown, what with those three being, being nominated by, and confirmed by Republicans. This time, a Democrat’s nominating a Republican and his own party’s trying to stop it.
@Tillman:
It’s only about votes in Committee because Just Me backtracked his butt off. His original comment read, “The democrats voted against almost every appointee Bush ever made.” Nothing there about only in Committee.
@Moosebreath: We’re responding to a post about committee votes.