Over at the Washington Post, Max Fisher has tallied up how often some key words were used during the marathon confirmation hearing from SecDef nominee, former senator, Chuck Hagel. As I noted in yesterday's closing thought, it seemed like Israel was mentioned a lot.
According to Max Fisher, Israel was mentioned 178 times, just nine ahead of the mark Iran set. Beyond what was mentioned, there were some notable absences from the questions the Senators asked. The number of times Yemen, Mali, Al Qaeda, or drones were mentioned was five. That's five times if you combine all those subjects.
It's a gross figure and many of these topics might have been sitting behind references to terrorism (76 mentions, or less than half as many mentions of Israel) and certainly a confirmation hearing is about prodding the nominee on his or her record. To that end, one anticipated many mentions of Israel and Iran based on past statements by Sen. Hagel.
But I find it almost unconscionable that a nominee for Secretary of Defense wasn't questioned about Al Qaeda or the two countries they are at their strongest, and it's near dereliction of duty by these senators to not seek some sort of stance on drones from a potential new secretary of defense. Then again, maybe that's a settled argument and I just haven't agreed on the settlement.
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