Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Jim Inhofe (R-OK), the new ranking member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, think they have found a way to gum up progress on the confirmation process of Chuck Hagel.

They want "copies" of speeches he has reportedly given and for which he was occasionally compensated. Hagel has sent all available speeches -- including video fragments or transcripts if they exist -- to the committee and has confessed that he just didn't use prepared texts for a number of these possibly great moments of Hagel oratory.

But they seem to want them anyway!



While I personally think Hagel is always better with a prepared text (Sorry Chuck), like many US senators -- including Inhofe and Cruz no doubt -- Hagel thinks he gives pretty good remarks without the scribbles drafted by an aide organizing his words. Believe me, Chuck Hagel is wrong on this, but he suffers from the same delusions that nearly all of his peers do. From my perspective, Hagel is a top notch thinker and strategist -- but his speaking could always get a boost from a Jon Lovett- or Jon Favreau-type. After all, look what Lovett did for Obama's Correspondent's Dinner fun with Donald Trump.

I've seen John McCain, Jim Inhofe, Jeff Sessions, Roy Blunt and others speak extemporaneously -- and if they were in Hagel's seat, I'm sure they'd be a bit miffed if senators Jeanne Shaheen or Carl Levin or Joe Manchin were pounding on them to produce speech texts that don't exist. They need to get over it. Calling Hagel a "liar" is beneath them, beneath the institution in which they work, and not healthy for democracy.