If you think that John McCain is a grumpy old man who shouts at clouds, he’s got nothing on Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma. Neither of them can stand Chuck Hagel for the simple reason that he is a constant reminder that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that our invasion of that country was a gigantic strategic and (especially) moral blunder that got a lot of people injured and killed unnecessarily and at tremendous expense. When Hagel turned against the war, he turned McCain and Inhofe into mortal enemies. Yet, while McCain retains an iota of dignity about it, Inhofe recently accused Hagel of being “cozy with Iran.”
Perhaps stung by the resulting rebukes, Inhofe felt compelled to explain himself. You see, Inhofe just took over at the Ranking Member (i.e., senior Republican) on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which was in charge of handling Chuck Hagel’s confirmation process to be the next Secretary of Defense. And he and freshmen Ted Cruz of Texas, who also sits on the committee, lobbed incendiary accusations at Hagel, including that he may have taken money from Saudi Arabia and North Korea. This is not in the tradition of the civil and bipartisan climate of the Armed Services Committee. So, Inhofe promised that he will be better behaved once Chuck Hagel is disposed of.
“They have to put on their show. We have to put on our show,” James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma said during an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But we get along fine.”
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Inhofe, one of the most conservative members of the Senate, who took over as the Armed Services ranking member at the beginning of this Congress, said Thursday the panel needs to get beyond this particular nomination.
“You’ll see the committee like it was before,” he said.
He might as well have said, “I can’t help myself. I just hate this guy.”
At least he admits that it is all for show.
