Arizona Sen. John McCain, one of the Republican Senators leading the battle against former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel in Hagel’s bid to become Secretary of Defense, now predicts that Hagel will be confirmed:
One of the leading critics of former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), President Obama’s embattled nominee to become Defense secretary, told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that Hagel will end up being confirmed.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said that Hagel will be approved by the Senate even though he is the “most unimpressive” nominee he has ever seen.
“The fact is that Chuck Hagel made statements and took votes in the United States Senate particularly about Iran, his comments about Israel were atrocious, but he will be confirmed,” he said.
“We will have a vote when we get back and I am confident that Sen. Hagel probably will have the votes necessary to be confirmed as the secretary of Defense,” McCain added.
McCain voted with all but four other Republicans on Thursday to filibuster Hagel’s nomination. He said Sunday that he did so to get enough time to more closely examine Hagel’s record. He said that delaying the vote until after this week’s recess provides a reasonable amount of time for consideration.
The senator, who claimed he is still a friend of Hagel’s, said he will vote against the nomination after supporting an end to debate.
“I don’t believe he is qualified but I don’t believe we should hold up his nomination any further. I think it is a reasonable amount of time to have questions answered,” he said.
It’s also clear some other Republican Senators — notably South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — will disagree. But McCain is kind of a weathervane.
And there most assuredly is lots of measureable wind in Congress.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.