Forget for a moment how Chuck Hagel performed at his confirmation hearing today. Consider how the U.S. Senate (as represented by its Armed Services Committee) performed:
Oh, screw it.
What I'd planned here, having listened to selected snatches of the nine-hour malignant clown show, was to extract every craven, grandstanding, litmus test-setting question demanding affirmations of unconditional support for Israel, willingness to supply limitless aid to Israel, retractions of any and all past criticism of Israel. But I can't find a transcript, and the relevant quotes are proving elusive in news stories. Trust me, the demands of Levin, Gillibrand and Blumenthal, not to say Cruz and Graham, boiled down to this: "Mr. Hagel, if confirmed, how thoroughly and wholeheartedly will you
subordinate U.S. interests to Israel's perceived interests?"
In any case, while searching for the questions in questions, I stumbled across a post by Mondoweiss expressing pretty much exactly what I wanted to say: