There's The Rubb

Jennifer "J-Rubb" Rubbin is down on Dancin' David Gregory for not giving Colin Powell the high, hard one on yesterday's Pressed Meat Fun Time Hour:

“Meet the Press” isn’t what it used to be. After a remarkably softball interview with President Obama on New Year’s Day, moderator David Gregory on Sunday let former secretary of state Colin Powell filibuster through one question after another, never following up or, as they used to do in the good old days, confronting the interviewee with statements that directly contradict his spin. Several examples suffice to show that Gregory is ill-prepared, doesn’t listen to the answers or has no interest in conducting tough interviews of the Obama administration’s surrogates. (Maybe it is all three.)

Powell asserted that Chuck Hagel is “superbly qualified” to be defense secretary. Umm. You would think an interviewer would ask: But doesn’t he lack executive experience?

You'd think!  How could Powell possibiy defend Adolf Hagler with a clever comeback to that poser?

After Reagan's inauguration as President, Hagel was named deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration. In 1982, however, he resigned his post over a disagreement with VA Administrator Robert P. Nimmo, who was intent on cutting funding for VA programs. Nimmo had referred to veterans groups as "greedy", and to Agent Orange as not much worse than a "little teenage acne". ...

After leaving government employment, Hagel co-founded Vanguard Cellular, a mobile phone service carrier that made him a multi-millionaire. While working with Vanguard, he served as president and chief executive officer of the United Service Organizations and the Private Sector Council, as deputy director and chief operating officer of the 1990 G7 Summit, and on the board of directors or advisory committee of the American Red Cross, the Eisenhower World Affairs Institute, Bread for the World, and the Ripon Society. He also served as Chairman of the Agent Orange Settlement Fund and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Although he was pressured by some to run for Governor of Virginia, where he had lived for 20 years, in 1992 Hagel moved back to Nebraska to become president of the McCarthy Group, LLC, an investment banking firm. He also served as a Chairman and was CEO of American Information Systems Inc. (AIS), later known as Election Systems & Software, a computerized voting machine manufacturer jointly owned by McCarthy Group, LLC and the Omaha World-Herald company.  On March 15, 1995, Hagel resigned from the board of AIS as he intended to run for office. Michael McCarthy, the parent company’s founder, was Hagel’s campaign treasurer. Until at least 2003, he retained between $1 million and $5 million in stock in Election Systems & Software's parent company, the McCarthy Group.

When Powell dodged Dave's qualification question with this string of irrelevancies:

GEN. POWELL: I think there are a number of reasons.... From there, he went to other things in life. He supported President Reagan in his run for office and as a result of that, he received an appointment as Deputy Director of the Veterans Administration. To show you the kind of courage this guy has and what he believes in, he quit after one year because he felt the Veterans Administration was not doing a good job for veterans and he couldn’t take that. He went back to private life, started a cellular company. In those days, it was something rather remarkable and new, made a fortune, did very, very well, and he continued to serve. And while he was running that cellular company, he also was president of the USO which was in trouble.

....He also has been co-chairman of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. He’s also on the defense policy board. This is a gentleman who knows all of these issues in depth. 

...Dave's failure to follow-up on executive experience was unforgivable.

If I didn't know better, I'd think J-Rubb really didn't care about Senator Hagel's executive experience. But that couldn't be. I'll hear no cynical suggestion that J-Rubb is disloyal to the facts.