Bob Dole: GOP Closed for Repairs

MoonHowler

By now, everyone is familiar with the video (see above) of Bob Dole telling Chris Wallace that he would put up a sign over the national GOP headquarters saying “Closed for Repairs.” (TPM.com)

Bob Dole, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon wouldn’t be welcome in today’s Republican Party because they all had ideas and positive agendas, Bob Dole said Sunday.

“Reagan couldn’t have made it,” Dole said. “Certainly Nixon couldn’t have made it, because he had ideas. We might have made it, but I doubt it.”

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, the former Republican presidential candidate and Senate majority leader offered a brutal indictment of what his own party has become.

“I think they ought to put a sign on the national committee doors,” Dole said of the GOP, “that says closed for repairs until New Year’s Day next year and spend that time going over ideas and positive agendas.”

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Secretary of Defense Hagel sails rather than flails

MoonHowler

Politico.com:

Just three months ago, Chuck Hagel was flailing under fire on Capitol Hill,  trying to convince his former colleagues in the Senate that he was the right man  to run the Pentagon.

Since then, the newly minted defense secretary has been dealing with massive  budget cuts, tense flare-ups in Syria and North Korea and a widening sexual  assault scandal that threatens to corrode the ranks. In spite of it all, he’s  getting high marks — even from those who opposed him from the start.

“I’m very pleased,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South  Carolina Republican who during his confirmation hearing grilled Hagel on  controversial remarks he made about Israel. Graham voted against Hagel but now  says he’s happy with the way Hagel has tackled a flurry of national security  challenges in his first three months on the job.

“He’s been a good advocate that sequestration is going to be a real death  blow to our military readiness. He’s reached out to Congress. He’s been  forthcoming in his remarks, trying to take the chain of command out of military  justice decisions and various sexual harassment [cases]. I don’t agree with  that, but generally speaking, I think he’s done a good job,” Graham told  POLITICO.

That must have been painful to admit.  Too bad people have to be excoriated, their reputations besmirched  and their character impugned just to get nominated to serve.  What was done to Chuck Hagel was inexcusable.

Is it fair to say that anyone President Obama nominates will face the same uphill battles?