Hardball   |  January 07, 2013

Matthews: Give Hagel a chance

Chris Matthews shares his thoughts on Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, and defends the president's nomination.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>> let me finish with this. the big story tonight is the pthd's nomination of chuck hagel . i think the fairest thing to do is to give this nomination a solid chance. let's see if he's the kind of person to give this enormous responsibility. personally, i think the attacks on him have been pushed hard by the right wing. he's restrained, skeptical. i am to like him for this reason, like dwight eisenhower . hagel knows the reality of war, not from the top but from the mud level. the g.i.s have to do the actual fighting. so when you watch the hearings, think of the americans out there on post tonight all alone in a place far from home . give some thought to the possibility they'd like to have a pentagon chief who knows just what that's like. and that's