Senate Majority Leader Scolds GOP For Unprecedented Hagel Obstruction: ‘What A Shame’

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) today filed a cloture motion on Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be the next Defense Secretary, saying he was forced to file the motion — which effectively means that 60 votes will be required for an up or down vote on Hagel — because Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-OK) and other Republicans “aren’t willing to consider” the Nebraska Republican’s nomination.

“This is the first time in the history of our country that a presidential nominee for Secretary of Defense has been filibustered,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “What a shame.” Watch the clip:

The cloture vote is scheduled for Friday and It’s unlikely Senate Republicans will be able to derail Hagel’s confirmation. At this point, their obstruction and delay appears to be just that: obstruction and delay.

But it’s worth remembering who wants Chuck Hagel to be the next Secretary of Defense — former top military and defense officials from both parties, 50 former U.S. ambassadors, veterans and military families, a bipartisan group of former national security advisers, and the country’s most prominent newspapers and journalists — and who doesn’t: James Inhofe, Ted Cruz, Bill Kristol, Rick Santorum, Elliott Abrams, and Jennifer Rubin. You do the math.

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Clinton Scolds GOP Senator For Focusing On Whether Protest Sparked Benghazi Attack

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shot back at a Republican senator during today’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Benghazi terror attacks, arguing that the Republicans’ focus on whether there was a protest against in anti-Muslim video at the time of the attack is irrelevant.

Much of the politicization surrounding the Benghazi affair centered on Republicans attacking the Obama administration’s initial assessment that the Benghazi attacks may have been sparked by the video protest, a determination that the administration later backed away from.

When Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) asked Clinton why she didn’t make “a simple phone call” to the evacuees to find out, the Secretary of State shot back: “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans!” she said, “What difference does it make?”:

JOHNSON: Madam Secretary, do you disagree that a simple phone call to those evacuees to determined what happened would have ascertained immediately there was no protest? That was a piece of information that could have been easily, easily obtained. within hours if not days.

CLINTON: Senator, you know, when you’re in these positions, the last thing you want to do is interfere with any other process.

JOHNSON: I realize that. I realize it’s a good excuse.

CLINTON: No it’s a fact. [...]

JOHNSON: Again, we were mislead there was supposedly protests and something spraying out of that, assault spraying out of that. That was easily ascertained that was not the fact and the american people could have known that within days and didn’t know that.

CLINTON: With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans! Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans?! What difference at this point does it make?! It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again,

Watch the clip:

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