Hagel battles taboos at hearing CHUCK Hagel didn't acquit himself well in the hearings on his nomination to be US secretary of defence. He was equivocal, often unconvincing and seemed taken aback by questions that had been swirling around the right-wing blogosphere for weeks. But some of his Republican inquisitors on the Senate armed services committee were rude, nasty, brutish and occasionally reminiscent of the old Republican right wing of William Jenner and Joe McCarthy.