From "The Chuck Hagel Witch-Hunt":
A Democratic official working on Hagel's confirmation told [the Daily Beast's Ali Gharib]: "What [Senate Republicans are] asking is unprecedented, and it's clear that it's information that he's unable to provide."
Norm Ornstein, the American Enterprise Institute's resident congressional scholar, also said the Republican senators' demands are "unprecedented":
I think it's a pretty ridiculous and outrageous thing to ask. You could say that there's been requests for detailed information [in the past], but this goes even beyond the intrusive questionnaires candidates fill out during the vetting process.
Added Steve Clemons, the Atlantic's Washington editor:
It's absurd. He's given them every transcript, every video, every shred of everything that he's done. But they don't believe it.
Sure they do. They are just infantile, as further revealed by the New York Post's best effort to even the partisan score:
Back when President George W. Bush named Henry Kissinger to chair the 9/11 Commission, Reid was among the Democrats who insisted that Kissinger turn over his client list as a condition of serving.
That's it. A straightforward client-list demand. That's all the Post--sort of the print edition of Fox News--can come up with as material evidence of equivalent Democratic skulduggery.
It's just pathetic. The world's greatest power and largest economy being bullied and crippled by nothing but a bunch of grown, cranky infants.