The editors of Barack Obama's hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune, urge the president to drop the nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense.
The editors of the paper write, "We'll be candid ... He should be in some other job, not running the Pentagon."
They add, "Chuck Hagel served this country honorably in Vietnam. But his troubling position on key defense issues and his disastrous performance at his hearing last week should prompt the Senate to turn down the nomination."
The paper writes, though, that Hagel does well when he's reading from a script. "If you only tuned in for former Sen. Chuck Hagel's opening statement in the Senate confirmation hearing last week on his nomination for secretary of defense, you might have thought, what's all the fuss?," the paper editorializes.
"But then came the questions from the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Queries that Hagel should have drilled out of the park, given that he'd prepped intensively for this performance. Instead, Hagel stumbled, bumbled and fumbled.
"One squirm-in-your-chair example: Hagel declared the Obama administration's policy on Iran's nuclear weapons program was "containment," meaning the U.S. could tolerate a nuclear-armed Tehran. An aide handed Hagel a slip of paper to remind him that the administration's position is that Iran will not be allowed to terrorize the world with a nuclear weapon.
"Slap to forehead."
Read the whole thing here.
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