Chris “The Fix” Cillizza interviews some GOP types on Hagelology, the fact that we now have Senate Republicans filibustering cabinet-level appointees, and why there’s just nothing you can do…
While the fight over Hagel is consuming official Washington — and enraging the Democratic base — Republican strategists believe that not only are few regular people following all of this, but the former Nebraska senator isn’t someone with all that many allies outside of Washington. “He’s about as unsympathetic a character as you’re ever going to see so the political danger is virtually non-existent,” said one senior Senate Republican aide. Added another GOP Senate strategist: “Hagel doesn’t have a natural base of grassroots support outside the president and Democratic leaders so it’s difficult to see any real backlash developing.” Worth noting: A Quinnipiac University poll conducted earlier this month showed that two-thirds of people didn’t know enough about Hagel to offer an opinion either favorable or unfavorable.
To recap, a political journalist, writing a daily political column for a major national newspaper (if not the supposed political newspaper of record), is openly agreeing with the GOP spin on Chuck Hagel being unknown outside the Beltway and pointing out this fact as if there’s nothing that can be done about it.
If only there was a way that somebody could inform more people outside the Beltway about this ridiculous and unprecedented GOP obstruction, so that more people would be aware of what Senate Republicans are doing right now. You know, like somebody writing a daily political column for a major national newspaper (if not the supposed political newspaper of record.) Why, if that were the case, it’s possible that enough people might be upset that the Republican assumption that there’s no downside to blocking a cabinet appointment with a filibuster would be false. It’s possible that enough people might consider that before President Obama, this simply hasn’t happened before. These informed people might then go about the process of asking their elected Republican senators exactly why that is. Those Republican senators may then ask themselves how it looks to the folks back home that the GOP is taking the unprecedented step of blocking a cabinet nominee for the first time in history precisely when the president making that nomination is Barack Obama, and never before that point.
Naah, journalism is hard and stuff. Why would you want to inform people when you can tell them what partisan political operatives say they should be thinking instead? It’s not like political journalism exists to inform the voting public or anything.
If Only We Could Find A Political Journalist, He SaidPost + Comments (84)