Cheney v. Hagel confirmations: Why the double standard?

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

Chuck Hagel has made some disgusting, inflammatory comments about the LGBT community in his past for which he has apologized for. Compare that with Dick Cheney: Democrats who are still on the fence about Hagel confirmed Dick Cheney, a war criminal who sold out the LGBT community, received 5 deferrments, is directly responsible for the death of tens of millions of innocent people, thanks to the illegal invasion in Iraq.

So here we have Chuck Hagel, who for all intents and purposes, has admitted that he was misguided on Iraq and who has sinced apologized. (Remember, there are Democrats who initially supported the war but have never apologized, a la Hillary Clinton.) Not only that, he vocally condemned his own party for Iraq. He is also opposed to the Military Industrial Complex and is one Republican who believes that the defense budget is far too bloated.

On the other hand, we have Dick Cheney who has never apologized for anything. If anything, he has ratched up his neocon views, would like us to go to war in Iran. Cheney is an evil, disgusting man! And now, only now when it is convenient for him, he's for marriage equality---this after he and his fellow war criminals in the Bush administration won elections by demonizing gays and lesbians.

Cheney was confirmed easily, with most Democrats signing on back then.

Now I know that times are different, but when Hagel made those comments about gays/lesbians, that was back then, too.

Why give Cheney a break, but go in hard against Hagel, a man who obviously has seen the err of his ways? And further, here's one *Republican* who seems to have a reasonable, thoughtful approach to wars and resolving international conflicts.

I'm just curious as to why this double standard persists.

[liberal N proud]

1. Who's in the White House

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

4. You didn't address the issue raised in my post. I don't see anything wrong with Hagel.

I see something very wrong with Cheney.

[frazzled]

2. The double standard is about confirmations of appointments, not about any issue

It has always been an unwritten, though much spoken, rule that great deference should be given to presidents in their choice of cabinet appointments (read: advisors), unless the nominee is deemed "unfit" to hold the office. (It's why, for better or worse, Russ Feingold voted to confirm John Ashcroft as AG, despite disagreements of an ideological nature.) Of course, unfit can be interpreted in a thousand ways. But in general, it is to be taken as a given that a president's nominees will probably be at ideological odds with the other party: elections have consequences, and if the people elected a president and his views, then those views should be respected in that president's cabinet choices.

Of course, that seems to have been largely a Democratic stance in recent times. The Republicans tried to shoot down many of Clinton's nominees on ideological grounds (remember Lani Guanier), and it has worsened with Obama. All this junk about a single statement from 14 years ago, or about some phrase used in a description of the Israel lobby, or any other cherry-picked and largely unrelated-to-the-job vote from the past is merely an excuse to oppose the president's choice of someone who has consistently expressed views about war as a last resort, and more recently views about the need to reduce the Pentagon's budget.

And it's about delegitimatizing Obama ... again (and again).

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

3. That's what my post is about: contradictions in appointments. If the Democrats had no issue with

Cheney, then why make an issue with Hagel?

[hughee99]

5. When did Cheney get confirmed?

It seems like you listed a lot of negatives for Cheney (and yes there are a lot), but they occurred about 10+ years AFTER his last confirmation vote. Are you suggesting Senators in 1989 were should have known back then what Cheney was GOING to do related to * and the Iraq war?