Amid Republicans' weeks-long display of sound and fury, President Obama nominated Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense and John Brennan for CIA director.

At the moment, Hagel is being touted as the more controversial nominee by the Republicans. Log Cabin Republicans, who endorsed a virulently anti-gay candidate for President in Mitt Romney, are protesting Hagel's 1998 comments regarding the military's don't ask, don't tell policy, and put up a full page ad in the New York Times today opposing his nomination. On the other hand, neocons are outraged that Hagel isn't completely in the tank to blow up the world to save Israel.

All of this would be comical if it weren't so pathetic. After all, in 2000, Mr. Neocon Bill Kristol thought Hagel would be a perfect running-mate for then-candidate George W. Bush. Now that Hagel is Obama's choice, not so much.

Hero to zero politics at its best. Meanwhile, war hero Max Cleland says they'll quit the posturing and confirm Hagel. As much as I'd like to believe that, I have no confidence in Republicans' ability to scale down their insanity these days. The truth is, they'd oppose anyone Obama nominates, but Hagel scares them most because he's a Republican who isn't a neocon hawk or a policy elite.

John Brennan, on the other hand, is a more troublesome nominee. Salon's Alex Seitz-Wald has a must-read column about why his nomination for CIA is troubling:

In his current job, for example, Brennan has spearheaded some of Obama’s most controversial national security tactics, such as the aggressive escalation of drone strikes and so-called signature strikes, where targets are hit based on incomplete intelligence. He’s also caught flak for claiming drone attacks didn’t result in a “single” civilian death in Pakistan one year and for initially (and erroneously) claiming that Osama Bin Laden “engaged in a firefight” with Navy SEALs during the 2011 raid in which he was killed.

In 2008, liberals and civil libertarians were outraged by the possibility of Brennan heading the CIA. “Appointing Brennan to the CIA does not mean a change from Bush. That was absolutely a critical part of Obama’s message. With Brennan, we get the taint of a Bush and two-facedness of a Clinton,” Andrew Sullivan, then at the Atlantic, wrote at the time.

Four years later, civil liberties have largely disappeared from the range of issues liberals care about. Two weeks ago, the Senate quietly reauthorized the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendment Act — which codifies warrantless wiretapping and email snooping — with little debate and no amendments.

I'm sure the confirmation hearings will be a hoot. Republicans are already on the bizarro train, so it could be entertaining. Or frightening.

Are Republicans petulant children or just insane or both? After whining and grousing over Susan Rice, they're now going after as-yet-unnamed-for-any-cabinet-post former Senator Chuck Hagel, for not being properly deferential to Israel.

Via ABCNews and AP, ex-shadow President McGrumpy and the Gang are grumbling already:

But opposition was growing among Senate Republicans who held their weekly, closed-door meeting on Wednesday. Lawmakers harbor real doubts about whether Hagel is sufficiently supportive of Israel, the U.S.'s closest Mideast ally, based on his remarks.

"When he served here, he was willing to step on a lot of toes and I think some of those toes that he pinched are screaming right now," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "But we'll see how it goes along. It depends a lot on how much his Republican colleagues are going to cause problems for him."
At the moment, Hagel remains the primary candidate for defense secretary and is being screened for the position, but his selection is not a done deal. He would succeed Leon Panetta, who has made it clear without announcing a date, that he intends to step down early next year.

[...]

Troubling for some lawmakers are Hagel's comments and actions on Israel, including his reference to the "Jewish lobby" in the United States.

"That comment is inappropriate," McCain said. "There's no such thing as a Jewish lobby. There's an Armenian lobby, there's not a Jewish lobby. There's an Israeli lobby. It's called AIPAC, very influential."

They're really more butthurt over the fact that Hagel criticized the escalation in Iraq and came to hate the Iraq war as much as any Democrat did. He also wasn't a fan of Bush and didn't hew the neocon line. Therefore, Republicans feel they have license to swiftboat him or at the very least, make him kowtow to their whims and fancies.

Bill Kristol is fanning himself madly and ramping up the neocon media blitz early. Via The Atlantic:

The low road is taken by the Standard's editor, Bill Kristol. He writes that Hagel is "anti-Israel," and then follows this assertion with a series of facts that don't corroborate it. Of course, as Kristol surely knows, "anti-Israel" is taken by some people as code for "anti-Semitic." As for those Weekly Standard readers who don't interpret the term that way--well, that's what the lower road is for. A separate story written by a Standard staffer quotes a top Republican Senate aide saying flat out that Hagel is anti-Semitic.

If you're wondering who that aide is, I have bad news for you: The Standard doesn't tell us, so we have no way of being sure that this person even exists. To students of American history, this tactic--conveying vicious accusations while cloaking their source--may sound familiar, because it's the way Joseph McCarthy used to operate. What it's not is the way a magazine with integrity operates. But I guess it shouldn't surprise us, given some of the Weekly Standard's previous behavior.

Meanwhile, Kristol's ideological kin are getting into the spirit of things. The Washington Post's neocon blogger, Jennifer Rubin, quotes Abe Foxman saying Hagel's views "border on anti-Semitism."

Meanwhile, the genuinely awful Jennifer Rubin spewed this all over the pages of the Washington Post. While I'm certain Frank Gaffney is beside himself with joy, her garbage doesn't deserve to line the cat box, much less show up in a national publication.

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