Senators Overboard!

Gail Collins (NYT): We seem to be short one secretary of defense …. Chuck Hagel, nominated yet totally-still-not-confirmed by the U.S. Senate. A Senate that is beginning to resemble a bad Carnival cruise. They’re dead in the water, nothing’s working and the chief engineer is Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

….. If [McCain] were on a Carnival cruise, he would be the captain. A captain who got on the P.A. and announced that the ship was going to Mexico. No, Alabama! No, in a circle! Or maybe we’ll just stay dead in the water until a week from Tuesday and see what happens.

Both McCain and Graham have changed their tune repeatedly over what the critical, central problem is about making Chuck Hagel the secretary of defense. The goal posts have not just been moved; they’ve been put on a tractor-trailer and driven down every highway exit in the continental United States.

…. Hagel wasn’t in government when the [Benghazi] attack occurred. He had nothing to do with it. Watching the Republicans fight this nomination over Benghazi is sort of like watching the crew of a disabled cruise ship racing around yelling about a bridge being out on the Amtrak route to Montreal.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/16/opinion/collins-senators-overboard.html?_r=0