Former Obama White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said he wasn’t too impressed with former Sen. Chuck Hagel’s performance at his confirmation hearing to become secretary of defense.
“The disconcerting thing, obviously, for anybody that watched it, was he seemed unimpressive and unprepared on the questions that, quite frankly, he knew was coming,” Mr. Gibbs said Sunday on NBC.
“This performance was not good,” noted Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press.”
Mr. Gibbs, however, added that he does believe the politician will be a good secretary of defense.
The former press secretary also ripped the “totally superfluous” questioning by the Senate Armed Services Committee, noting Sen. John McCain’s inquiries about the Iraq war.
“The next defense secretary is not going to deal with Iraq and the surge,” Mr. Gibbs said. “This was a vanity thing for John McCain to try to prove to a former friend who disagreed with him that he was right on the surge and that Chuck Hagel was wrong.”
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Jessica Chasmar is a continuous news writer for The Washington Times. Previously, she was part of the start-up team for The Washington Times’ digital aggregation product, Times247. She can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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