Tuesday, February 26, 2013

You Were Wrong: Chuck Hagel Edition -- Daily Intelligencer

I love this concept:
Welcome to the first installment of You Were Wrong, a new feature in which we ensure that pundits receive credit for their failed predictions.
Despite some unhelpful comments about gays and Israel and one of the worst confirmation hearings in memory, Chuck Hagel's nomination as secretary of Defense easily achieved clouture this afternoon by a vote of 71 to 27, and he will be officially approved by the Senate later today. Let's take a look at who was wrong about Hagel's nomination.
While I was not particularly excited about Hagel (I'd have preferred a Democrat) I couldn't see any way this nomination was going to be derailed.  Sure, Bill Kristol was freaking out.  But the vast majority of people don't give a shit what Bill Kristol thinks. 

Democrats weren't going to shiv the President on his pick. And Hagel was a fairly popular, media-friendly Senator with many years of national recognition.  Unless he was secretly the biggest jerk to ever stride through Congress, he had to have retained some friends in the GOP.

I would love to see YouWere Wrong as a regular feature where paid pundits are actually called on their bullshit.  While I am not a paid pundit, I do leave the comments open here and people are free to call me out when I'm proven to be completely wrong about everything. 

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