Maddow on GOP blocking Hagel: ‘This is a fresh hell in American politics’

[Playinghardball]

Thursday night on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow turned her sights on the unprecedented move by the Republicans to block the nomination of Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) as Secretary of Defense. The level of obstructionism as most recently signified by the act of blocking every move that President Barack Obama makes, she said, is a truly nightmarish state of affairs that calls to mind the famous phrase author Dorothy Parker would use when answering the phone, “What fresh hell is this?”

“Today, something happened in politics that has never before happened in the history of our republic,” said Maddow. “In all of the trials and tribulations we have been through as a nation, through the wars, through the Great Depression, through the time when senators used to beat one another with canes inside the Capitol, in everything we’ve ever been through as a nation, what happened today has never happened before.”

Never, she said, has a sitting president been blocked by a minority in the U.S. Senate when selecting someone for his cabinet, — and yet, that is precisely what happened on Thursday when the Republicans in the Senate blocked the the nomination of Sen. Hagel for Secretary of Defense.

Republican senators, including Sen. Lindsay Graham (AR) and Sen. John McCain (AZ) blocked the Senate’s ability to vote on Hagel’s nomination, in spite of going on record saying that they would not.

Graham, for his part, claims that he is blocking Hagel as a means of getting more information about what happened in the siege of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Maddow pointed out that if Republicans were serious about getting information about Benghazi, then they would have blocked the nomination of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) for Secretary of State, not Hagel’s, since Hagel had nothing to do with Benghazi and knows noting about it.

“Since Chuck Hagel had nothing to do with it, substantively,” she asked, “why block his nomination?”

“Because wrecking stuff is fun, maybe?” she continued. “‘Hulk smash?’”

Watch the clip, embedded below via MSNBC:

Raw Story (http://s.tt/1zPD5)

[libodem]

1. Get the tinfoil and wrap your heads very tightly

I'm gunna make up the reason, right here and now....Romney's LDS spooks, fomented the disaster, to give him a leg up in the election, by giving Obama his own 9/11 to account for.



I think they doth protest too much.....



I don't like or trust republicans. And, yes I think they are that underhanded.

[msongs]

2. doesn't say too much for dems leadership either nt

[pacalo]

3. In libodem's scenario, there's no involvement by the Democrats.

Expanding on libodem's possibility, the Benghazi incident could have been designed as an expedient for an election win for Robme; hence, the over-the-top anger & continued obsession in regard to Benghazi. The Republicans seem determined to make the incident work in their favor somehow.

This is just a possible scenario, &, like libodem, I believe the Republicans -- &, most particularly, the corporate world -- are capable of anything.

[libodem]

6. Thank you

For entertaining my creative speculations. I hope someone investigates. And they get caught.



A girl can dream.....

[pacalo]

8. Their persistence of this obvious case of selective outrage has always seemed suspect.

And the fact that they're such poor losers makes it so transparent that something must not have gone as expected


.

[libodem]

10. You ssid that well

Whether my delusional thinking has any validity or not. I'm clearly speculating in a grandiose manner.


The visions. Stop the visions.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Nah, they would not do that!!!!

What gave you that silly idea? (Iran hostages, Iran-Contra, arming the Taliban)

[libodem]

11. Kinda makes ya go

Hmmmm?

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. And those are the well known, I am afraid.

[emulatorloo]

5. Another non-sequiter anti-Dem post. Starting to wonder if you are a BOT.

[emulatorloo]

4. Not big on tinfoil, but yeah there is something pretty fishy going on

Would not surprise me if there was kind of pot-stirring operation over there, funded by Republican billionaires to create an October Surprise "event."

[libodem]

7. You never know

And I don't trust the CIA not to run interference, when it comes to protecting their own interests in the Military Industrial Complex. That's why they will never get caught, and Lindsey can pull his pants down and stick his ass in the President's face. That little disrespectful, sleezey, lowlife, weasel, worm.

[SaveAmerica]

15. I think I love you

[libodem]

16. He is a worm

Isn't he. Thanks for the love.

[SaveAmerica]

19. He's worse than a worm; worms are beneficial!

[libodem]

21. My friend Di says

I would rather be a worm in a wild apple than to be the Son, of man. It is from some poem.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. My husband is fond of a saying that might apply here

"Sometimes you are not paranoid, they are out to get you."

[libodem]

17. True

Paranoia is occasionally actually warranted. Sometimes people really are out to get you.


I always wonder if it's me. Sometimes it turns out it is them. Go figure.

[SaveAmerica]

13. I would put money on Rove first, he's been trashing

elections for decades, each trick he pulls has been worse than the last. Wouldn't he have more CIA connections behind the scenes to make that happen? You don't need tin foil for this; based on what we know Rove did to get Bush elected and the weird way it was similar to the Middle East hostage situation right before the Carter/Reagan election.

[libodem]

18. Maybe

Ratfucker is after all "The Architect". God, what a waste of skin.

[emulatorloo]

23. Koch Bros too - they strike me as totally ruthless

[City Lights]

20. Republicans are disgusting creatures.

Fuck them.

[libodem]

22. Perhaps depraved

And evil. There was a time when I didn't believe in evil. Now, I think it exists. Ever notice how there is no reflection in Cantor's eyes?