BREAKING: Senate Confirms Chuck Hagel As The Next Secretary Of Defense

BREAKING: Senate Confirms Chuck Hagel As The Next Secretary Of Defense: The Senate on Tuesday voted to confirm Chuck Hagel to become the next Secretary of Defense, just hours after the upper chamber of Congress broke the Republican-led filibuster of Hagel’s nomination. The final vote was 58-41. Four Republicans joined the Democrats in voting for Hagel: Sens. Mike Johanns (NE), Thad Cochran (MS), Richard Shelby (AL), [...]/p

John McCain Can't Admit The Iraq War Was A Mistake

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

McCain Says He’s Opposing Hagel Because Hagel Was Mean To Bush

McCain Says He’s Opposing Hagel Because Hagel Was Mean To Bush: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told us how he really feels about Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel on Fox News this afternoon, saying “people don’t forget” when you cross your own party. Speaking to Fox News host Neil Cavuto, McCain said that he still believed that Hagel would get the votes required to be confirmed. What [...]/p

BREAKING: Senate Republicans Make History, First To Filibuster Defense Secretary Nominee

BREAKING: Senate Republicans Make History, First To Filibuster Defense Secretary Nominee: Senate Republicans today chose to uphold a filibuster against Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel, despite many of them previously pledging that they would be willing to allow him to be confirmed. Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), and John Cornyn (R-TX) all voted against cloture, despite their pleas during the Bush administration that [...]/p

‘Senator Cruz Has Gone Over The Line’: Colleagues Slam Ted Cruz For Irresponsible Rhetoric On Hagel

‘Senator Cruz Has Gone Over The Line’: Colleagues Slam Ted Cruz For Irresponsible Rhetoric On Hagel: Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) criticized Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) during an Senate Armed Services Committee meeting today on Chuck Hagel’s Defense Secretary nomination for suggesting that Hagel is being influenced financially by foreign countries. During the meeting, Cruz objected to moving forward with Hagel’s nomination, saying — without offering any evidence — that the former [...]/p

National Security Brief: Expert Calls Out GOP Senator’s ‘Unprecedented’ Hagel Obstruction

National Security Brief: Expert Calls Out GOP Senator’s ‘Unprecedented’ Hagel Obstruction: Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, announced on Wednesday that he will delay the committee’s vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination for Secretary of Defense. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), a committee member, wants Hagel to hand over the texts of private speeches and to disclose the financial dealings of private companies [...]/p

Hagel: ‘I Think It’s Always Wise To Try To Talk To People Before You Go To War’

Hagel: ‘I Think It’s Always Wise To Try To Talk To People Before You Go To War’: One of the main themes senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee committed themselves to today during Chuck Hagel’s confirmation hearing to be the next Secretary of Defense was — not wondering whether Hagel fully supports a diplomatic approach to Iran’s nuclear program, as most Americans do — but rather, whether the former Republican senator [...]/p

For McCain, Hagel Opposition A Proxy War With History

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

McCain And Graham Lambaste Their Friend Chuck Hagel

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Angry warmonger McCain looks for someone to tell him that the terrible idea of war in Iraq and the surge was a good idea.

PERRspectives: On the Wrong Side of Everything, McCain Attacks Hagel

PERRspectives: On the Wrong Side of Everything, McCain Attacks Hagel
"As a quick glance at his record shows, no American political figure has been as consistently and catastrophically wrong on matters of national security than John McCain. (Worse still, McCain's out-of-control temper and erratic judgment led many of his Republican colleagueslike Thad Cochran to worry that "the thought of his being President sends a cold chill down my spine.") Nevertheless, John McCain, who long ago anointed himself judge, jury and executioner on defense issues, today blasted President Obama's Pentagon nominee Chuck Hagel as being on the "wrong side of history."

As a reminder, here is a brief history of John McCain's reign of error."

Hagel Takes On McCain: Calls Iraq War ‘Most Fundamentally Bad, Dangerous Decision Since Vietnam’

Hagel Takes On McCain: Calls Iraq War ‘Most Fundamentally Bad, Dangerous Decision Since Vietnam’: The confirmation hearing of former Sen. Chuck Hagel to take on the role of Secretary of Defense — already sure to be testy — heated up with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) pointedly asking Hagel to justify his stance on the Iraq War. McCain, an ardent supporter of the Iraq War from the start, began his [...]/p

Ted Cruz thinks He's Qualified To Judge Kerry, Hagel On Military Support

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Neocons Promote Iranian Propaganda In Anti-Hagel Campaign

Neocons Promote Iranian Propaganda In Anti-Hagel Campaign: The neocon smear machine failed to prevent Chuck Hagel’s nomination as the next Secretary of Defense as President Obama announced on Monday that the former GOP senator is his choice to succeed Leon Panetta at the Pentagon. Fresh off their defeat, it seems like the neocons are getting desperate in their efforts to derail Hagel’s [...]/p

How the Chuck Hagel Brawl Exposes Neocons and Reveals the Limits of American Power | Alternet

How the Chuck Hagel Brawl Exposes Neocons and Reveals the Limits of American Power | Alternet
"Mr. Hagel, a two term Republican Senator from Nebraska, seems as cut-from-the-establishment-cloth as any pick of recent memory. A Vietnam combat veteran and the recipient of two Purple Hearts, he is currently the chairman of the Atlantic Council and a professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His voting record while in the Senate is unremarkable, having  maintained B-level ratingsfrom the American Conservative Union and National Taxpayers Union, two of the oldest traditionally conservative lobbying organizations in the country."

Who Paid for the Log Cabin Republicans' Anti-Hagel NYT Ad? | Common Dreams

Who Paid for the Log Cabin Republicans' Anti-Hagel NYT Ad? | Common Dreams
"Last Thursday, the gay GOP group Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) placed a full-page ad in the New York Times that attacked Chuck Hagel as anti-Israel and anti-gay and urged President Obama not to appoint him as Defense Secretary. This was quite a strange event for multiple reasons."

Bipartisan Group Of Former National Security Advisers Condemn Attacks On Hagel

Bipartisan Group Of Former National Security Advisers Condemn Attacks On Hagel: Four former national security advisers in a letter to the editor in the Washington Post published on Tuesday denounced what New York TImes columnist Tom Friedman described as “disgusting” attacks on former Republican senator Chuck Hagel and praised Hagel’s prior service to the United States. Responding to a Dec. 21 Post story on Hagel’s potential [...]/p

Chuck Hagel Swiftboated For Not Bowing Down to AIPAC

Chuck Hagel Swiftboated For Not Bowing Down to AIPAC
"Are Republicans petulant children or just insane or both? After whining and grousing over Susan Rice, they're now going after as-yet-unnamed-for-any-cabinet-post former Senator Chuck Hagel, for not being properly deferential to Israel."

AIPAC, Hard-Right now Setting Their Sites on Chuck Hagel | Alternet

AIPAC, Hard-Right now Setting Their Sites on Chuck Hagel | Alternet
"Even before their victory-dance over allegedly derailing the hypothetical nomination of Susan Rice to become Secretary of State ends, Republicans have to decide whether to follow right up with a similar campaign against former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel's hypothetical nomination to succeed Leon Panetta at the Pentagon.

In some respects, that means choosing between the GOP's past and present foreign policy principles."