Exhibit number one of this irresponsible body politic was the Senate hearing for Chuck Hagel's nomination to secede Mr. Panetta. In that hearing, let's face it, there were bad performances all around. Chuck Hagel preparation, if you could call it that, was seriously deficient. Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham attacked Mr. Hagel like they were both district prosecutors with a chance at an arch criminal, which was certainly not the correct tact as well - to understate it. David Brooks and Robert Gibbs were correct in their respective assessments. Mr. Brooks said that Mr. Hagel hadn't done his homework, and Mr. Gibbs was correct in that the focus of the Senators' questions was not focused properly. In Mr. McCain's re-litigating of the troop surge in Iraq with Mr. Hagel, there is no 'was it correct or incorrect.' When Mr. McCain asked if he refused to answer the question, Mr. Hagel should have said 'yes,' and then explained his position, which we understand to be that the surge wasn't correct because it presumes that the entire Iraq war was the right thing to do.
We like the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey's answer that he wouldn't seek to criticize his potential future boss. Well, not really, but for someone in his position it was the prudent answer. However, when asked if Chuck Hagel was the right choice, Leon Panetta used the word 'absolutely.' His performance hasn't inspired confidence in Democrats but has inspired Republicans (noted: Marco Rubio, Roy Blount, John Corker, Ted Cruz and the aforementioned Senators McCain and Graham) to be more forceful in their dissent. As Ana Navarro accurately pointed out, Mr. Hagel could not articulate the Administration's official position of Iran and it's nuclear aspirations. Mr. Todd noted that the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol compared the Hagel nomination to the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Meyers - ouch. We wouldn't necessarily agree with Mr. Panetta, or Mr. Kristol in as much as we think that Mr. Hagel could be a competent secretary but as a straight-talking possibly dissenting voice in the room, we have our doubts.
The important point that General Dempsey was that the Defense Department can not be consistent and properly ready living under potential sequestration and, the less talked about, continuing resolution, and that's not to say that we're not for defense cuts. We agree with this point in so much as that they need to have a set number with which to work, and this way they can move forward without the money question consistently hanging our their heads. The spending cuts need to be more carefully done so that you don't find the entire U.S. economy all of sudden shrinking.
Through this topic of sequestration, Chuck Todd elicited the most forceful answers from Leon Panetta, not on the topic of Benghazi. Even though he brought up the fact that Senator Graham would hold up Mr. Hagel's nomination until he testified on what happened at that U.S. mission in Libya, to which Mr. Panetta comically replied that he was 'looking forward to presenting,' just like looking forward to the drill without novocain. The topic of Benghazi is why Chuck Todd is not the full time moderator of the program - he didn't ask hard questions. Frankly, if you wanted good questions on Benghazi that provided frank answers from the Defense Secretary, you should have watched Candy Crowley's interview with the same pair on CNN's State of the Union that aired before Meet The Press. Another spot where we thought Mr. Todd could have been better was when he referred to the United States' travel advisory for Afghanistan as a gauge for success there because it stated that in Afghanistan its own citizens were not safe. Mr. Panetta swatted away the question by explaining that 'it's a war area [of course it's not safe].'
But still on the potential sequestration, we find it troubling when the Secretary of Defense that it will weaken our military's preparedness and readiness, especially since that along with the furloughing of 800,000 civilian employees is the result of self-infliction. As it was pointed out, we have few friends when it comes to stopping Al Qaeda around the globe, especially in North Africa so we need to be prepared as General Dempsey did make the valid point that the distance between Benghazi and the most prepared unit, in Djibouti, is the same as from New Jersey to California. Mr. Panetta outlined a number of countries where we have engaged Al Qaeda - Yemen, Mali, Afghanistan - he left out Pakistan, but the point is that the world seems to allow us to go around the globe hunting the terrorists in their countries, violating their sovereignty, as long as there are no ground troops. So we should adjust our military accordingly? How about asking Chuck Hagel what he thinks about that?
The place where responsible politics is trying to break through is with immigration reform; it's at least attempting to get a foothold. You wouldn't know it solely listening to Ralph Reed who, on the program today, outlined his position on immigration as it is written about in scripture. So essentially, we still don't know what his position is, but given that we do not make any law with respect to religion (First Amendment), we find it difficult to get on the same page as it were. He also mentioned, ironically, that the devil is in the details. We would contest that details is not where the devil is, it's where the facts are.
Ms. Navarro stated that there are political risks for both sides of the aisle, but as we've said previously, Republicans have a lot more political goodwill to gain from passing legislation. The reason that you know responsibility and rational compassionate thinking are in play with immigration is for the fact the Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is taking a lot of heat for his ideas in spearheading legislation. The main contention is that Senator Rubio, in his proposal, addresses the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States and gives them a path to citizenship, A difficult path - both in following the rules and in enforcing them, but a path nonetheless. The National Review has deemed the Florida Senator's approach as completely wrong.
Alas, however, we go back to our comfortable political position of irresponsibility [read: do nothing] when it comes to gun safety legislation. To say that there shouldn't be any legislation in regulating individuals' access to guns through purchase is disingenuous. The President isn't anti-gun as the The White House tried to weakly
illustrate with the release a picture of the president shooting skeet. Despite this, we agree with the administration that there is a need for tighter regulations when it comes to individuals enjoying their second amendment right.
Mr. Reed said that individual sales with background checks would kill gun shows, and to this we would ask, why do we care? If people want gun shows, then they should find a way to make it so that everyone (both sides of the purchase) is on the up and up. Buying a gun at a gun show shouldn't be the same experience as buying a book at a book fair. With guns, you just have to ask a few more questions.
Round Table: former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs; Chairman of the Faith and Freedom coalition Ralph Reed; former National Hispanic Co-Chair for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, Ana Navarro; and the New York Times’ David Brooks.
For the Record: Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta did admit that enhanced interrogation techniques (waterboarding as it was described at the time, but now deemed torture) were used in extracting information from prisoners in the hunt and eventual capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden.
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