Sen. Ted Cruz wants to know what about Chuck Hagel? He wants the former Nebraska senator to account for his personal income before becoming the next secretary of defense?
I believe that’s what the Texas Republican – who’s been in the Senate a little more than a month – wants to know. What a disgraceful display of petty petulance. Cruz said something about wondering whether Hagel had received payments from “radicals.” What the … ?
Cruz made the comments this week just as the Senate Armed Services Committee was voting on whether to send Hagel’s nomination to the full Senate for an up-or-down vote.
What galls me the most is that this kind of cheap theater comes at the expense of a decorated Vietnam War combat veteran from someone who’s never worn the nation’s military uniform. Hagel got roughed up pretty badly as he testified before the committee, which recommended him to the full Senate on a strictly partisan vote. Cruz was one of the roughest on Hagel during the former senator’s hearing.
Hagel, it should be noted, is a Republican – just like the pols who grilled him. That he has been nominated for this key Cabinet post by a dreaded Democratic president hasn’t gone over well with his former colleagues. But leave it Cruz, who never served with Hagel in the Senate, to take these questions to a new low.
And leave it to fellow Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona – the former Vietnam War prisoner and unsuccessful GOP presidential nominee in 2008 – to put Cruz in his place. “Chuck Hagel is an honorable man,” McCain said of his fellow Vietnam vet, “and no one on this committee” should impugn Hagel’s integrity or honesty.
I think Sen. McCain is talking to you, Ted.