Two U.S. senators have written a letter to Chuck Hagel to ask the defense secretary nominee to explain his assertion that "the State Department was becoming an adjunct of the Israeli Foreign Ministry." Hagel, the Washington Free Beacon reported yesterday, made the comment in 2007.

The Obama administration pulled another fast one last week, announcing its much-anticipated “compromise” on the free-birth-control rule as it affects religious employers opposed to contraception. There was hope in some quarters that the administration would back off its narrow religious exemption. Alas, a careful reading of the proposed rule shows that instead of offering a true modus vivendi, the administration launched a stealth power grab.

In a new book on demographics set to be published next week, Jonathan V. Last writes that pets now outnumber children 4 to 1 in America.

Vietnam veteran and ex-Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Isolation) made a stunning impression in his audition for the role of secretary of defense yesterday, though it was not quite the one that he wished. "Though he was being asked about things he had said over the course of the past 15 years, it was what Hagel said yesterday…that had his defenders reeling in shock and even his critics aghast at how poorly he handled himself," wrote John Podhoretz in the New York Post. Said Roger L. Simon, "They had to send him a note in the middle of the proceedings to remind him of the administration’s position on Iran and 'containment,' and even then [he] got it wrong."

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Fred Barnes hosted by Michael Graham: