PoliticsNation   |  February 26, 2013

‘Embarrassing’ haggle over Hagel finally at an end

Reverend Al Sharpton says “gotcha” to the members of the GOP who prolonged the Hagel confirmation vote, only to change their vote and stop the filibuster against him – thus allowing the vote that would confirm him to occur.

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

>>> today we saw an end to one of the most embarrassing, shameful examples of republican misbehavior in recent political history. late this afternoon the senate finally voted to confirm president obama 's nominee for defense secretary chuck hagel . it was a vote long overdue. for weeks republicans had attacked hagel 's policies, his competence, and even his patriotism.

>> our concerns pertain to the quality of your professional judgment.

>> isn't it interesting that iran supports chuck hagel 's nomination to be secretary of defense.

>> it may be that he spoke at radical or extreme groups or anti-israel groups and accepted compensation. we don't know.

>> that's right. they didn't know if he accepted money from extreme groups. because he didn't. the attacks from the right were especially poisonous because they were so personal.

>> there's a lot of ill will towards senator hagel because when he was a republican he attacked president bush mercilessly.

>> it was all about a grudge. john mccain and other republicans didn't like hagel because he opposed the iraq war and made president bush look bad. they even took the unprecedented step of filibustering hagel nearly two weeks ago. something that had never happened to a defense nominee before. but today 18 republicans voted to end the filibuster. 14 of them changed their votes from earlier this month including senator john mccain . so what changed in two weeks? nothing. what did republicans accomplish? nothing. and what did republicans like john mccain reveal about themselves? everything. did mccain and his pals think we'd forget their childish, venomous attack on the president's team? nice try. but we