Will Anyone Ask Hagel About This?

Tomorrow the Senate will hold its confirmation hearing on Chuck Hagel's nomination to be Secretary of Defense.

I'm sure someone will ask him how he would deal with the end of the military ban on women in combat.


But will anyone ask him what he would do about this?

The trailer up top is for Kirby Dick's documentary The Invisible War, about the military rapes McKeon is covering up and which has been nominated for an Academy Award this year. The film features one of Congress' most outspoken proponents of the rights of the victims of this tragedy, Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree. Unlike McKeon's shady hearings next week, the documentary includes interviews with numerous survivors of sexual assault. A member of McKeon's Armed Services Committee and an effective thorn in his side, Pingree has urged her colleagues-- and her constituents-- to watch the film. "This nomination," she said, "is an honor to the people who made the movie, and that includes the incredible brave veterans who told their stories on camera. It's only because people like them have had the courage to talk about what happened to them that the scandal of sexual assault in the military has been brought to light." McKeon, however, is still trying to shut them up.

All due respect to Hagel's experience as an enlisted man in combat, the issues facing today's military are simply beyond the ken of white straight men of his generation.

Obama missed a huge opportunity by not nominating Michele Flournoy for Secretary of Defense.