My "Don't Confirm Hagel" Email to Senators

If you go here, you can automatically send an email note to your Senators telling them to just say NO to confirming Hagel as Sec Def. I sent mine to Ohio Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman. Standard text is provided by the website, but I modified the text in mine slightly, adding an extra paragraph, which I highlighted in bold below.

I am asking you---not only as your constituent but a concerned citizen---to vote "No" on the confirmation of Senator Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. Chuck Hagel's confirmation would send a dangerous signal to Iran and other radical Islamic elements which would make our country and our allies less secure. Senator Hagel has made it clear that he would not use strength to prevent the Iranians from obtaining nuclear weapons. He has also sought to distance the United States from Israel, and refused to stop efforts to end terrorist attacks on Israel.

As my representative in the United States Senate you swore to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic." I firmly believe there are more qualified persons to serve as our next Secretary of Defense.

For all these reasons I have been opposed to Hagel being confirmed as Secretary of Defense for some time now. But listening to audio of the confirmation hearings today, I have another concern. Mr. Hagel's halting, hesitating responses when he was asked several difficult questions--which he assuredly knew he would receive--made me wonder if he is mentally competent to serve in this high pressure position. Upon observing this I remember thinking that I wouldn't be surprised if he had unknowingly suffered a stroke, or has some other malady of the brain which makes him slow on the uptake. Please consider this before you confirm a man with an impaired mind.

I deliberately avoided the use of the word retarded which, though the most accurate word I can think of to describe his feeble-minded responses and speech impediment, I deemed to possibly be construed as a bit disrespectful by the staffers who are forced to read these correspondences.