Reactions to Hagel nomination fast and furious and why I have lost any respect I ever had for Ed Koch
The reactions to Chuck Hagel's nomination to be Secretary of Defense of the United States has been fast and furious. And one of them - Ed Koch's - has caused me to lose all respect for someone who was a contemporary of my late parents. But more on that below.NBC's Chuck Todd reported on Monday morning that as many as 10 Democratic Senators may vote against Hagel.
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Weekly Standard).
Yes that was Chuck Schumer (D-NY) you saw at the end of that clip, but Jennifer Rubin reports that Schumer has been entirely noncommittal. Here's what she reports about some other Senators.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), among the first to sound the alarm on Hagel, put out a blistering statement suggesting that Republican votes will be hard to round up: “I will not support Chuck Hagel’s nomination to the Department of Defense. His record and past statements, particularly with respect to rogue nations like Iran, are extremely concerning to me. . . . As Iran becomes increasingly hostile and gains influence in the region, the worst possible message we could send to our friend Israel and the rest of our allies in the Middle East is Chuck Hagel.”
It was noteworthy that, while leaking the Hagel nomination over the weekend, the administration lined up no support from Senate Democrats for the Sunday shows. As a result, Republicans including Cornyn, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and freshman Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) to one degree or another bashed Hagel while prominent Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) were entirely noncommittal. This morning both Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and potential New Jersey Senate candidate Mayor Cory Booker expressed concerns about Hagel. Offices of Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) would not provide comment despite our repeated attempts to ascertain the views of these critical Democrats. (Imagine the position they’d be in if 30 to 40 Senate Republicans voted no.) It seems they are hoping that Hagel will blow himself up before or during the hearing and they’ll be spared an actual vote when he limps off the stage. (Profiles in courage they are not.)Here's Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md) on radio Monday morning.
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Weekly Standard).
In an earlier post, I wondered when we would have a reaction from Ed Koch. Well, we now have it and it's a doozer. Koch essentially says "I knew that Obama would abandon Israel eventually, but I didn't expect it to happen this quickly."
“Frankly, I thought that there would come a time when he would renege on what he conveyed on his support of Israel,” said Koch, adding, “it comes a little earlier than I thought it would.”
“It’s very disappointing, I believe he will ultimately regret it,” Koch said, “and it undoubtedly will reduce support for him in the Jewish community, but I don’t think he (the President) worries about that now that the election is over.”Hey Ed - if that's how you felt, why the hell did you run around telling Jews to support Obama again?
Koch explained to The Algemeiner why he decided to back the President’s re-election even though he says he suspected that Obama would backtrack on his pro-Israel overtures. “I did what I thought was warranted and intelligent,” he said, “He was going to win! There was no question about it. I thought it would be helpful to have a Jewish voice there, being able to communicate.”
The Mayor says he has no regrets, “it’s wouldn’t make any difference. The Jews were going to vote for him no matter what. And that’s the nature of the Jews. They are always very solicitous of everybody else except there own needs and community.”Bulldung, Ed! Obama wasn't 'going to win anyway' until at least the end of October, if at all. You just didn't have the junk to call on people to vote for a Republican, did you? Do you have a brain or do you just jerk your knee before you talk?
Koch goes on to call the Hagel vote a 'critical test' for Senator Charles Schumer. I think Schumer needs to go onto Nachum Segal's JM in the AM again to learn how to open his mouth. And I think Koch needs to retire and keep his gutless mouth shut. This election was a test for whether Ed Koch was capable of placing Israel ahead of his loyalty to the Democratic party's machine. Sadly, Koch failed.
I have more on Hagel, but this post is getting too long, so it will wait for the next one.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Charles Schumer, Chuck Hagel, Ed Koch
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:06 PM
4 Comments:
I think someone should ask Ed if he helped line up the Tel Aviv Ski Lift. Or the Nevada geothermal or the CA solar or the Hawaii electric cars... Or Technion's planned research island castle in NYC. Not like normal R&D, but $millions and $billions. And that Green $lu$h will turn out to have a genocidal price, as I've been saying on here for at least a year? Someone will write a book on it later.
I agree Carl, it would have made a difference.
I have yet to see any prominent Democrat who has the integrity, the honor, to use a sadly old-fashioned word, to put doing the right thing or to put Country before party.
The last Democrat I can remember doing so is now-retired Georgia former Senator and Governor Zell Miller, who led the Democrats for Bush campaign in 2004.
"Loyalty to Obama and loyalty to the Democratic party trump support for __________." Just fill in the blank with anything worthwhile.
The White House must have called Chris Matthews yesterday and told him to dial back the antisemitism. In his opening segment I call Nine Minutes of Hate he screamed about how Hagel isn't about Israel but about how (essentially) Obama should be permitted to rule as a dictator unrestrained and his nominations must be allowed to pass with a rubber stamp from Congress. Normally, Balloonhead would be ranting about how Israel controls the US and Bibi is Satan. He made 3 or 4 specific references during the campaign that "Israel thinks it can control our elections!" unquote. But even the White House doesn't want to go Kristalnacht before the inauguration. They will eventually but not just yet.
By the way the latest NDAA report estimates that US intelligence underestimated the number of Chinese nukes by a factor of 10.
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130105/DEFREG02/301050003/New-U-S-Law-Seeks-Answers-Chinese-Nuke-Tunnels?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|p
So now our CIA chief a crypto jihadist, and the leader of the DoD a man who seems to be an Iranian lobbyist can oversea this catastrophe.
Post a Comment
<< Home