Hagel: Why was he so bad—and can he recover?

Perhaps he failed to prepare himself properly, or perhaps “he simply isn’t bright,” said Jennifer Rubin in WashingtonPost.com. But in his Senate confirmation hearing last week, defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel gave a completely disastrous performance. Under grilling from former colleagues on the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Nebraska Republican and decorated Vietnam vet came across as evasive, confused, and ill-informed, repeatedly retracting statements he’d made in the past and in the hearing itself. At one point, Hagel even wrongly said that Obama’s policy on Iran’s nuclear program was “containment”—that is, trying to limit the consequences of letting the mullahs build a bomb. When Sen. Lindsey Graham “challenged him to name one senator ‘intimidated’ by the ‘Jewish lobby,’” as Hagel once claimed many were, the flustered nominee stammered that he couldn’t. Barring a GOP filibuster, Senate Democrats have enough votes to get Hagel confirmed, said William Kristol in WeeklyStandard.com. But after his dreadful performance, won’t at least some Democrats announce, for the good of the country, that “they will not consent to a secretary of defense unqualified for that high office?”

Hagel may have had a rough time, said John Avlon in TheDailyBeast.com, but that’s only because his Republican cross-examiners came at him “with the pitchfork zeal of heretic hunters.” To those paying attention, Hagel actually gave a series of reasonable, well-thought-out answers, but they were buried amid hours of sarcasm and open contempt from GOP neoconservatives who have clearly not forgiven Hagel for warning that the Iraq War was a mistake. Hagel, as it happens, was right about Iraq, and so was then-Sen. Obama, who called it “a dumb war.” A majority of the American public now sees it that way, too, and agrees with Obama’s policy of avoiding unnecessary military involvement abroad—which is why the panicky neocons went after Hagel so aggressively. As for Sen. Graham’s question on Israel, said Stephen Walt in ForeignPolicy.com,Hagel could have easily pointed to the hearing itself as a “compelling vindication” of the view that the Israel lobby has an unhealthy influence on our politics. In a full day of questioning of America’s next defense secretary, Israel was mentioned 166 times, and the threat to Israel from Iran, 144. That’s compared with only 20 mentions of Afghanistan, barely any mention of China, and none of drone warfare.

There’s a good reason why Hagel was so defensive and “neutered’’ in the hearing, said Peter Beinart in TheDailyBeast.com. Hagel’s nomination could only fail, the Obama administration reasoned, if he were baited into a heated confrontation and said something he couldn’t retract. The real Hagel is a man of strong conscience and views, and “is quite compelling when he’s mad.” Appearances matter, though, said Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal, especially in international affairs. It can only have “come as a comfort to America’s enemies” to watch such a weak, bumbling performance by the man who’ll soon be leading our armed forces.

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Even Democrats now know Hagel is damaged goods, said Jonathan Chait in NYMag.com.Obama had hoped the Republican war hero would be “a commanding figure” who could sell a skeptical nation on his downsizing of the Pentagon and more cautious use of the military. But Hagel’s startlingly inept testimony last week created a “buffoonish image he will probably never shake.” For that reason, ironically, Republicans “are probably better off with a wounded Hagel in office than voting him down.”