Chuck Hagel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’m fascinated with the all the nattering over the Chuck Hagel nomination for Secretary of Defense. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is wringing his hands over the Republican “obstructionism” and their unprecedented filibuster against his nomination. President Obama has committed to standing firmly by his choice, claiming he is not going to give in to the Republicans.
Even cranky, increasingly unpredictable Arizona Senator John McCain has danced the two-step over the nomination of his one-time close friend, Hagel. First he admonished fellow Republican senator Ted Cruz from Texas for personally attacking Hagel with unsubstantiated rumors and innuendo. Then he made a statement that he would not support his party’s planned filibuster. Yesterday, he once again danced away from reality, deciding to support the Republican blockade because in the past, “Hagel had been a loud and continuing critic of President G.W. Bush, and his war in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
UPDATE 2/17/2013:
In yet another two-step dance by McCain, he admitted on Sunday that in spite of the Republican filibuster, Hagel will still have the votes for the position.
“I’m confident that Sen. Hagel will probably have the votes necessary to be confirmed as secretary of defense,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Are We Surprised?
Republicans have been known over the last four years as the “Party of No.” They have voraciously attacked everything proposed by Obama, from his health care plan which was identical to the one Senator Lindsay Graham (Name sound familiar?) presented to President Bush in about 2007, to increasing taxes back to the same level as the 1990′s, a time of unprecedented prosperity. They have defended the big banks behind the economic collapse, while attacking every effort to afford new protections to consumers and borrowers.
After all of this, are we surprised that they continue to oppose everything Obama? Are we really to believe that the re-election of Obama, along with picking up a few seats in the House and Senate, was going to bring forth a new era of cooperation between the parties, a new spirit of cumbia?
We can claim being surprised by current events only if we’ve lived in an isolation tank during the Obama years.
Who’s Responsible?
I lay the blame for this turmoil squarely at the feet of Harry Reid and President Obama. Had they been doing their jobs, cabinet level nominations would not be held hostage by yet another in a four-year string of Republican filibusters.
Harry Reid (Photo credit: Cosmic Smudge)
Where did Majority Leader Reid ever come up with the spineless decision to not overturn the 60 vote rule to end a filibuster? Was he so naieve as to believe that Republicans would not continue on their path of blocking every issue, every vote to come before the Senate, exactly the same process they’d used for the previous 4 years?
Reid had the opportunity to end that stalemate process once and for all; he was “First and Goal…” and he punted.
As for Obama, his noted disdain for dealing with members of Congress continues to prove
Barack Obama (Photo credit: jamesomalley)
his failures as a leader. While the decision was pondered by Reid, and knowing the difficulties of his first term, Obama should have been on the phone every day to Reid, should have invested in real face time with him, lobbying to insure Reid made the right decision, the decision to end the closet-filibuster.
Instead, Obama focused on a weak State of the Union speech, handed off the all important gun legislation to Vice-President Biden, and remained aloof to a decision that could well re-define his second term as President to one of actual achievement.
Leadership means constantly focusing on the goal, using whatever means to get there. Leadership requires taking steps to outmaneuver the opposition, to appease some, to pull others to your side of the fence. Leadership means taking whatever steps are necessary to make that goal a reality.
Obama is a great speaker, and has outlined many noble and worth-while goals. But there is more to attaining success than just being a great orator. Leadership is not setting goals and walking away, expecting others to carry your water. What Obama lacks is the get- involved part of the process, the getting down in the dirt and mud and doing the work that needs doing.
President Obama, it’s time to stop flying around the country giving flowery speeches, and return to Washington and actually do the job you were hired to do.
Where Are We Today?
1) The Chuck Hagel nomination for Secretary of Defense is in political limbo. The Senate is in recess for two weeks, there will be no new vote, and with each passing day, more ammunition is stockpiled against his nomination.
2) For similar reasons, the nomination of Brennan is being held up for Director of the CIA.
3) The Consumer Watchdog Committee law, a result of the Dodd-Frank legislations, is at risk of never being implemented, because of the congressional standoff with Obama, over whether there will be a single director, or an oversight committee reporting to Congress.
I lay this gridlock squarely at the feet of “Weak-Kneed” Reid and “No Drama” Obama.
But that’s just me…
Related articles
- Yes, Chuck Hagel is being filibustered. Yes, that’s unprecedented. (washingtonpost.com)
Always enjoy your analyses – on one hand, it makes me a bit sad for our country that the people who we elect seem to ignore us after they begin the job, on the other, what on earth would you write about if things weren’t messed up?
I think the overall direction of the country is going south, and we are all going to be the worse for it. This isn’t a Red or a Blue problem, it is a country-wide problem that will have long-term negative affect on all our lives.
Be that as it may, I do appreciate your comments and the fact that you are such a long-time follower of Mountain Perspective. If you weren’t the first, you certainly were in the first 5, and I do really appreciate it. All the best to you and Stanley.
I was watching PBS Newshour on Valentine’s Day and a presidential historian and LBJ’s granddaughter were talking about LBJ’s love letters to Lady Bird. He truly had to win her over to marry him. The historian made the point that this was just what LBJ did as a politician. He wore you down with what he wanted, kept talking with your about how this is in our collective best interest and connected dots. He was masterful at this and got some of the most significant legislation passed. Joe Biden does this as well, but he is not in LBJ’s league. With that said, I have witnessed an unprecented effort not to work with the President, so I do not blame him as much as you do. But, to your point, he is not without blame. And, I have never been a fan of Harry Reid and I find him needessly confrontational just like Mitch McConnell. It should be not lost that Biden and McConnell closed the fiscal cliff deal and Reid was a bystander. Back to Hagel, if he handled himself better in the hearings, some of this would have subsided. He should have stood up and said – you have the nerve to question my patriotism when our previous president took us to war under false pretenses and Americans died. He should have added you want someone like me doing this as I know what is like to go on the battlefield. Back to Obama, I agree he does need to work with Congress more and maybe he can tap Biden to help him more. Good post, BTG
I’ve read 3 of the 4 biographies written on LBJ by Robert Caro. In the last one, he writes extensively about the efforts Johnson put forth to get civil rights through, even after Kennedy had decided not to even try. And LBJ did it with clearly racist, segregationist senators against the whole idea. He did it by working with Congress, not just making great speeches and then waiting for others to get the job done, as Obama does.
I agree with your comments about Hagel and how he should have stood up against the panel. However, Hagel is only the symptom of the failures of this administration in dealing with the Republican blockade. The goal is to get the decision made, and Obama loses sight of that. Yes, as the old saying goes, “Its difficult to remember that your goal is to drain the swamp, when you are surrounded by alligators.” Obama, and Reid in this case, feared the alligators too much.
There is a great piece another friend sent this morning that Hagel is only the tip of the iceberg. Just wait for when a Supreme court nomination comes up.
Thanks for writing, always enjoy hearing from you
Great quote on the swamp and alligators. The Supreme Court nomination will be interesting. I just watched a very good documentary on Vito Russo, a gay rights activists who died of Aids. I was reminded of how Ronald Reagan turned a deaf ear to people dying from AIDS as the people dying were less deserving of help. A Supreme Court nominee will have to fight a GOP that still maintains a practice of exclusivity. BTG
You are right, and these fights could all have been avoided, or at least mitigated, had Reid overruled the 60 vote filibuster rule. Republican senators are now speaking of anything to pass the senate will require 60 votes as a normal course of business.
The real quote is, “When you’re up to your a– in alligators, it’s hard to remember your job is to drain the swamp.” Reid and Obama became too entranced by the alligators, and forgot their goal was to drain the swamp.
Senior moments are becoming senior days! Thanks again for writing!!!
I’m envisioning symbolism here. Gridlock is when one direction of traffic gets stopped in an intersection by traffic at the next intersection, thereby preventing the cross traffic from passing though on the green light. Of course, the offending vehicles are also suck by the back-ups of cross traffic. This all suggests that someone is trying to get somewhere, rather than a group of truckers has parked their semi’s in all the intersections.
The symbol that works for me is the chess, non-end game of Stalemate. The nearly-lost player’s king is stuck, not in a corner, but a square away from the corner. It can move to the other square next to the corner without being checked, but does not have the power or position to trap the player with a king and weak piece, say, one knight or a bishop. The weaker player just keeps going back and forth with only a few moves for evasion. The slightly less weak player keeps pushing toward the corner, but never getting checkmate.
As you suggest, the game was really lost a few year ago, and we are just waiting for these two players, who have lost most of the pawns, castles, knights, bishops, and queen, to give up. Then we can see if we get some better players at the board.
Oscar
You’re right, it is a form of gridlock. And now its both partys sitting on their laurels, pouting like kindergarden kids, refusing to move, locked in a game of “he said, she said.” Obama may not particularly like Congress, but he’d better learn to work with them or the next 4 years will be as useless as the last 4 years.
And the moves in the corner of the chessboard is exactly what we’re seeing. No one goes anywhere beyond where they are stuck today.
I think this was a major strategic mistake by Reid and the Dems, one that will haunt them for the next 4 years.
Thanks for writing
I catch your drift but “gridlock squarely at the feet” is a bit of high steppin’. I too don’t understand the President’s leadership style but I do know it might be hard to sit down to supper with dinner guest who spent their days calling you a Commie or worst. Yep, as POTUS you’ve got to woo all the players but it would help if all are engaged in the same game. Seems Democrats are always about process and the GOP all about power.
And that process point brings me to Harry Reid. I’m no fan but I understand his hesitancy to flush the filibuster: giving the lay of the land democrat Senators will be vulnerable come mid-term time. Especially with gun legislation in the air.
Nice Post. Thanks
Thank you for your thoughts, but I do stand by my statement of “Squarely at the Feet of Reid and Obama.” Ever since Congress convened in January, Reid had the opportunity to kill the 60 vote filibuster. He chose not to. Obama could have been working the democrats and Reid to lobby for killing it; he chose not to. And now Reid acts surprised that the Republicans used yet another filibuster? yes, I truly believe what they did was stupid and ego driven. What I think of Reid and his pretend surprise at the Republicans actions is ludicrous and belittling. Even we knew what to expect.
My role model for working Congress was LBJ. He didn’t like a lot of members of congress, but he knew, and made the effort to get to know, what motivated them. He knew how to wine and dine them, he knew how to cajole them, and he knew how to threaten them. But what he knew best of all, was that he had to reach out to them to get things done. Passing civil rights, in those prejudiced times, was so much larger of an achievement than getting Hagel through, but he got it done on the first try.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I always appreciate hearing from readers.