Fox News Hosts Breitbart's Shapiro Days After "Friends Of Hamas" Story Implodes

MATT GERTZ/Media Matters For America

Fox News rewarded Breitbart.com editor at large Ben Shapiro with an appearance less than a week after Shapiro publicly embarrassed himself over a fraudulent story linking Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel to the apparently nonexistent group "Friends of Hamas." 

Over the past few weeks, Shapiro has been skewered for attempting to smear Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel by reporting that (according to "Senate sources") he had received money from a shady group called "Friends of Hamas." 

After Shapiro's story imploded when it came to light that there's no evidence that "Friends of Hamas" actually exists, some in the conservative media suggested that their movement needed to police its own to maintain credibility. That accountability will not come from Fox News, which hosted him today and did not ask him about his failed smear.

Shapiro appeared for a discussion of the recent exchange between Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward and the White House over the sequester - a topic that countless other pundits could have discussed. During the segment, Shapiro attacked the media for allegedly being too soft on the Obama White House. From the February 25 America Live segment, hosted by Megyn Kelly:

Shapiro's initial February 7 report spread quickly through the conservative media, even showing up on Fox Business' Lou Dobbs Tonight, until Slate's David Weigel pointed out that there was no evidence that "Friends of Hamas" actually existed. New York Daily News reporter Dan Friedman added to Shapiro's humiliation when he claimed in a February 19 column that a joke Friedman shared with a GOP source was possibly the provenance of "Friends of Hamas."

The Breitbart.com blogger has come in from widespread criticism from all quarters, with many pointing out that it was his responsibility to determine the plausibility of the "Friends of Hamas" claim rather than simply publishing it as an allegation. For their part, Shapiro and Breitbart.com have denied any failing and lashed out at their critics.

In a February 21 article for TheAtlantic.com, conservative writer Conor Friedersdorf wrote that the conservative media "need to self-police for their own sake." Citing the Shapiro affair, he wrote that other conservative reporters need to be willing to criticize their peers when they get stories wrong and punish those who repeatedly fail to provide accurate information. But he warned that this was unlikely to happen:

Yet inside conservative media, he'll likely maintain his standing. National Review contributors might be more careful when touting his stories. But there won't be public blowback. It won't seem like his peers are outraged or angered that someone is spending down the credibility of conservative media. And Breitbart presumably won't issue an apology, or hire a public editor, or take any other significant step to bolster its credibility among the people who mistrust it.

Fox, at least, appears to have no interest in enforcing standards with regard to who they book. As Friedersdorf notes, among the right-wing media "Only loyalty is vocally enforced."

Senate Confirms Chuck Hagel As The Next Secretary Of Defense

By Ben Armbruster/Think Progress

The Senate on Tuesday voted to confirm Chuck Hagel to become the next Secretary of Defense, just hours after the upper chamber of Congress broke the Republican-led filibuster of Hagel’s nomination.

The final vote was 58-41. Four Republicans joined the Democrats in voting for Hagel: Sens. Mike Johanns (NE), Thad Cochran (MS), Richard Shelby (AL), and in a surprise move, Rand Paul (KY), who voted against cloture earlier today. Eighteen Republicans supportedthe cloture motion to bring about the up-or-down vote this afternoon.

Once sworn in, Hagel will most likely first face the looming budget crisis, particularly sequestration, which is set to kick in at the end of the week absent any deal. Hagel will also face other pressing issues like the coming drawdown in Afghanistan and the focus on Asia, none of which were debated much during the run-up to Hagel’s confirmation vote.

The Republicans and their neocon allies threw everything they could — however false,misleading, petty or shameless — at Hagel to try to prevent him from leading the Pentagon and TPM’s Josh Marshall may have stumbled across one of the main reasons why. “The real driver of this drama is that it signals a real closing of the door on the Bush era,” he wrote last week.

Ted Cruz Claims He Has A List Of Communists Who Have Infiltrated Harvard Law

By Zack Beauchamp/Think Progress

During the confirmation hearing for Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Sen. Ted Cruz engaged in guilt-by-association tactics that reminded several observers (including this author) of former Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI)’s baseless claim to have “a list” of Communists who had infiltrated the U.S. State Department.

It turns out Cruz was even more like McCarthy than previously thought. He believes that “Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government” have infiltrated the Harvard Law School faculty, outgunning the embattled campus conservatives.

Cruz’s Communist comments came in a speech to the Koch-supported group Americans for Prosperity unearthed by The New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer. Mayer attended the speech, and wrote down the text of Cruz’ McCarthyite allegations, which also linked President Obama to the so-called revolutionary Marxists at Harvard:

Cruz greeted the audience jovially, but soon launched an impassioned attack on President Obama, whom he described as “the most radical” President “ever to occupy the Oval Office.” (I was covering the conference and kept the notes.)

He then went on to assert that Obama, who attended Harvard Law School four years ahead of him, “would have made a perfect president of Harvard Law School.” The reason, said Cruz, was that, “There were fewer declared Republicans in the faculty when we were there than Communists! There was one Republican. But there were twelve who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government.”

Like McCarthy, Cruz doesn’t name names, and that’s no surprise. As Mayer notes, “Under the Smith Act, it is a crime to actively engage in any organization pursuing the overthrow of the U.S. government.” So Cruz’s allegation could potentially mean he’s accusing a large chunk of the Harvard faculty of engaging in a federal felony.

It’s also extremely unlikely that there were any truly revolutionary Marxists at Harvard. The intellectual cohort Mayer guesses he was pointing to are advocates of Critical Legal Studies (CLS), an intellectual movement with strong roots at Harvard Law. CLS scholars argue that law and legal texts are indeterminate; in greatly simplified terms, that the law can be interpreted in basically whatever fashion judges choose. Taking after a long tradition of leftist thought (including Marx himself), CLS advocates argue that the fact of legal indeterminacy means law ends up reflecting the will and the interests of the powerful (principally rich, white men) rather than neutral adjucations of the principles that are supposed to underpin the law. A more comprehensive introduction, from Harvard Law Professor Roberto Unger, can be found here.

It’s true that this is an extremely left-wing analysis of the way that law works, but that doesn’t mean they actually wanted the Soviets to win the Cold War by overthrowing the US government, as Cruz said. Indeed, as Mayer notes, perhaps the most famous CLS exponent at Harvard, Duncan Kennedy, identifies as a “social democrat,” not a Communist and certainly not a revolutionary Soviet.

A majority of the Supreme Court’s conservative bloc attended Harvard Law School. No Marxists (that ThinkProgress is aware of) from Harvard have ascended to the Supreme Court.

McCain's grudge against Hagel holds up nomination

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BREAKING: Senate Republicans Make History, First To Filibuster Defense Secretary Nominee

By Hayes Brown/Think Progress

Senate Republicans today chose to uphold a filibuster against Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel, despite many of them previously pledging that they would be willing to allow him to be confirmed.

Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), and John Cornyn (R-TX) all voted against cloture, despite their pleas during the Bush administration that a president’s Cabinet nominees should receive an up-or-down vote.

Four Republicans, Sens. Thad Cochran (R-MS), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Mike Johanns (R-NE), voted to break the filibuster. The final vote was 58-40, with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) voting present, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) not voting at all, and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) voting “no” as a procedural move so that he can bring another vote to the floor at a later date.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had originally scheduled the cloture vote for tomorrow morning, but surprised many by pushing it up to this afternoon. Earlier today, Reid took to the Senate floor to lambaste his Republican colleagues for delaying an up-or-down vote on Hagel, the first filibuster of a Secretary of Defense nominee.

Prior to the roll call’s beginning, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) attempted to explain that the vote that was set to take place was the vote “to confirm Chuck Hagel,” rather than merely being a procedural vote. Inhofe also claimed that a 60-vote margin was common practice, rendering the actions of the Republicans not a filibuster. However, the motion was still filed by Reid as cloture — the ending of debate — rather than the actual confirmation of Hagel, as laid out be Levin before voting. This leaves the door open for Hagel’s nomination to remain on the Senate floor and renders the GOP’s actions a filibuster under the Senate’s rules.

While Senate Republicans are opposed to voting on Hagel today, they seem to believe that they’ll change their minds after the Senate returns from its President’s Day recess in 10 days. This morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that he expected to be willing to move Hagel forward at that time, “unless there’s some bombshell that he likes blood sucking vampires.” Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and John McCain (R-AZ) said roughly the same thing today, leaving their votes against Hagel today confusing.

The hope for such a bombshell emerging seems far less than likely. A speech given by Hagel in 2008 that conservatives have long-sought as evidence that Hagel falls far outside of the mainstream was released today, turning out to be a dud. Likewise right-wing implications that Hagel was secretly being backed by a group called “Friends of Hamas” also proved to be utterly false, fabricated on a far-right media outlet.

After today’s filibuster, the Senate will reconsider Hagel after their break. While today’s vote showed that the GOP was willing to obstruct and delay, they ultimately will be unable to do this forever. In the end, Hagel still possesses more than the majority vote needed for final passage.

GOP Senator: Don’t Filibuster Hagel Confirmation

By Ben Armbruster/Think Progress

A Republican senator who serves on the Armed Services Committee said on Friday he does not believe Chuck Hagel should need 60 votes to be confirmed as the next Secretary of Defense.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) said on MSNBC this morning that he does not intend for vote for Hagel; but when asked if he would support a filibuster of the former Republican senator, Blunt said he would not and that Hagel should receive an up-or-down vote:

BLUNT: I will be voting no in the committee and then assuming there’s a vote on the floor I’ll be voting no on the floor.

CHUCK TODD: Well there’s two ways — and there’s a third way to vote no on him which of course is the issue of a filibuster. Would you support a filibuster of Chuck Hagel’s nomination?

BLUNT: I doubt it. I doubt it. I think for somebody who’s going to be there the length of time the president serves as opposed to a Supreme Court judge, thata majority in the Senate should be able to confirm. I wouldn’t intend to be a part of that majority but certainly my strong inclination would be that this is a vote that should be done by a majority rather than a 60 vote standard and this person’s going to leave the day the president leaves that makes a difference.

Watch the clip:

While only a handful of Republicans have said they will vote against Hagel, it does appear that he will get some GOP support. And with the Democrats in the majority, it seems increasingly likely that Hagel will get confirmed.

Hagel Takes On McCain: Calls Iraq War ‘Most Fundamentally Bad, Dangerous Decision Since Vietnam’

I'm still mad that I lost to that tall nergo Kenyan socialist.

By Hayes Brown/Think Progress

The confirmation hearing of former Sen. Chuck Hagel to take on the role of Secretary of Defense — already sure to be testy — heated up with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) pointedly asking Hagel to justify his stance on the Iraq War.

McCain, an ardent supporter of the Iraq War from the start, began his questioning of Hagel by asking about the latter’s past statements regarding the so-called “surge” of forces into Iraq in 2007. Hagel, by then a vocal critic of the war, came out strongly against adding additional troops to the conflict soon after the policy’s announcement — just like President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had — calling it “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam.”

Hagel didn’t back away from previous statements, saying “Senator, I stand by them, because I made them.” When McCain continued to push Hagel, refusing to allow him to offer a nuanced response to the question of the surge, the Nebraska Republican shot back, noting that the surge tactic took place in the wider context of the most “dangerous decision since Vietnam”:

MCCAIN: Are you going to answer the question? Were you right or wrong? That’s a straightforward question. Answer whether you are right or wrong and then you are free to elaborate.

HAGEL: I’m not going to give you a yes or no answer.

MCCAIN: Let the record show he refuses to answer the question. Please go ahead.

[...]

HAGEL: I’m not going to give you a yes or no. It’s far more complicated than that. I will defer that judgment to history. As to the comment I made about the most dangerous foreign policy decision since Vietnam, that was about not just the surge, but the overall war of choice going into Iraq. That particular decision made on the surge, but more to the point, our war in Iraq, I think was the most fundamentally bad, dangerous decision since Vietnam.

Watch their exchange here:

“Aside from the cost that occurred to blood and treasure, what that did to take our focus off of Afghanistan, which in fact was the original and real focus of the national threat to this country. Iraq was not. I always tried to frame all of the different issues before I made a decision on anything,” Hagel continued. Hagel’s response is a continuation of his previous assertions that the war in Iraq is one of the “great blunders” of American history.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) picked up on Hagel’s critique in his questioning, referring to Iraq as a war that never should have taken place. “I always ask the question is this going to be worth the sacrifice, because there will be sacrifice,” Hagel said in response. “In the surge in Iraq, we lost almost 1200 dead Americans and thousands of wounded. Was it required? Was it necessary?” Over four thousand Americans total lost their lives during the Iraq War.

Hagel is also in the right, of course, that the surge can’t be viewed as the only cause for a reduction of violence in Iraq. CAP Senior Fellow Larry Korb and Policy Analyst Matt Duss today published an op-ed in Politico making clear that Hagel’s stance on Iraq was essentially correct:

While historians will of course continue to debate the actual impact that the addition of 20,000 U.S. troops made on the war’s outcome, a rough consensus has developed that recognizes that while the addition of troops did make some positive impact, it did so mainly by facilitating events that were already underway, such as the revolt by Sunnis in Anbar province against al-Qaeda and the decision by Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr to stand down his Mahdi Army militia.

The argument between McCain and Hagel marks the latest low point in a relationship between two previously close friends. In 2000, during his first run at the presidency, McCain cited Hagelas a potential Secretary of Defense should he take the White House.