Published at 1:55 p.m. ET: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., sharply criticized Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for not deploying U.S. forces so they could rapidly respond to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi.

“It’s one of the more bizarre statements I have ever seen in my years on this committee,” McCain told Dempsey, accusing him of failing to place U.S. aircraft ahead of time at bases such as Suda Bay, Crete, where they could  have reached Benghazi within 90 minutes on the day of the attack.

Given the threats and attacks on foreign diplomats in the weeks leading up to Sept. 11, 2012, McCain contended, Dempsey ought to have placed forces closer to Benghazi.

McCain called Dempsey’s testimony "simply false" regarding U.S. deployments to deter or respond to an attack in Benghazi.

Dempsey “didn’t take into account the threats to that consulate—and that’s why four Americans died,” McCain angrily told the general. In the Sept. 11 assault on the facility, Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods and Sean Smith, were killed.

Recommended: Drones take center stage

The Arizona Republican also contended that “it was almost predictable” that “bad things were going to happen in Libya” in the weeks leading up to the attack because the fledgling government was too feeble to maintain control of the country – and he blamed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and President Barack Obama for not deploying a strong U.S. military presence in the country to help keep order.

For his part Dempsey told McCain that “we never received” a request from the State Department to place forces closer to Benghazi to be poised to respond to an attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility.

“So it’s the State Department’s fault?” McCain asked.

“I’m not blaming the State Department,” Dempsey replied. But he said he was concerned on the day of the Benghazi attack about an array of possible assaults on U.S. facilities not only in Libya but in Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Pakistan, and other locations in the Islamic world.

Dempsey, along with Panetta, was testifying Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Panetta told the panel there were two short-duration attacks that occurred six hours apart. “We were not dealing with a prolonged or continuous assault which could have been brought to an end by a U.S. military response,” Panetta said.

Both Dempsey and Panetta said the best situation would have been to have had U.S. forces on the ground before the attack to defend the facility.

Two other Republican members of the committee, Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, pressed Panetta and Dempsey on how many times they directly briefed Obama on the attack on the day it occurred – the answer was once.

Both Ayotte and Graham implied that Obama ought to have asked more questions and been more involved in keeping apprised of the events in Benghazi in real time. On her Twitter account, Ayotte said while the hearing was in progress, “POTUS outsourced #Benghazi response.”

While the attacks were underway, Graham asked, “did the president show any curiosity about how is this going, what kind of assets do you have helping these people?”

Recommended: Senators, John Brennan brace for national security showdown in CIA hearing

Panetta replied – citing his experience a former White House chief of staff, “The purpose of staff is to be able to get that kind of information and those staff (members) were working with us.” He added, “The president is well informed about what is going on.”

Graham also questioned Dempsey about Ambassador Stevens’s Aug. 15 cable warning the State Department that the facility in Benghazi couldn’t defend itself if it came under attack. Dempsey told Graham that he was surprised that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not know about that cable.

In his testimony, Panetta said the Department of Defense and U.S. armed forces “did all that we could do in response to the attacks in Benghazi.” He explained that “armed UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones), AC-130 gunships, or fixed-wing fighters with the associated tanking – you’ve got to provide air re-fueling-- armaments – you’ve got to arm all the weapons before you put the on the planes” -- were not in the vicinity of Libya.

He said that even if he’d been able to deploy F-16 fighters or AC-130 gunships over Benghazi in time, “the mission still depends on accurate information about what targets they’re supposed to hit. And we had no forward air controllers there” and no communications with U.S. personnel on the ground.

He said, “because of the distance, it would have taken at least 9 to 12 hours, if not more, to deploy these forces to Benghazi. This was, pure and simple,  -- in the absence as I said of any kind of advance warning -- a problem of distance and time.”

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testifies on the attack on U.S facilities in Benghazi, Libya before the Senate Armed Services Committee Feb. 7, 2013 in Washington, D.C.

He explained that “unfortunately there were no specific indications of an imminent attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi. Without adequate warning, there was not enough time given the speed of the attack for armed military assets to respond.”

In his testimony Panetta also warned about the effects of the automatic spending cuts – called sequestration - that are mandated by the 2011 Budget Control Act and are set to begin on March 1.

“If Congress fails to act and sequestration is triggered, and if we also must operate under a year-long continuing resolution (keeping spending at last year’s levels), we would be faced with a significant shortfall in operating funds for our active forces with only seven months remaining in the fiscal year,” he told the committee. “This will damage our national defense and compromise our ability to respond to crises in a dangerous world.”

Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images

CIA director nominee John Brennan during a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 31, 2013.

Amid new developments and revelations, President Barack Obama’s national security policies, past and future, are set to come under Senate scrutiny Thursday.

Most notably, Obama’s nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, will address what role the targeted killings of terrorists, either by using drone strikes or other means, have played and should play in national security policy.

Questions about targeted killings intensified Monday after a report by NBC News revealed a Justice Department memo which argued it was lawful for the president to target U.S. citizens who are leaders of al-Qaida or “an associated force.” Brennan will be appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation hearing.

On Wednesday, an Obama administration official said the president had directed the Justice Department to give the congressional intelligence committees access to classified memos justifying the targeted killings policy. Until now the administration had refused to do this.  

Addressing the past on Thursday will be Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as they testify before the Armed Services Committee about the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi.

Senators on the panel -- especially Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. -- want to know how the U.S. military reacted to the attack, and what the Defense Department’s internal review revealed after the event.

The two hearings will feature contrasting political color: Republicans -- led by Graham, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire -- have been the ones who have made an issue of the Benghazi attack almost since it took place. They’ve implied that a full accounting of what happened was delayed until after the presidential election. Graham held up Obama’s nomination of Chuck Hagel to be defense secretary until he could get a chance to question Panetta about Benghazi.

But Obama’s drone policy -- directed largely by Brennan in his role as Obama’s counter-terrorism adviser -- has drawn criticism both from progressives on the left and those on the right who are fearful of an excessive concentration of power in the presidency.

On Benghazi, much is already known. In its report on the attack, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said last December that Panetta’s Defense Department and Hillary Clinton’s State Department hadn't jointly studied the availability of U.S. military forces to defend or rescue the U.S. diplomats in Benghazi in the event of a crisis.

The Pentagon’s Africa Command didn’t have planes, helicopters, or other forces close to Benghazi on the day of the attack. “The Djibouti base was several thousand miles away. There was no Marine expeditionary unit, carrier group or a smaller group of U.S. ships closely located in the Mediterranean Sea that could have provided aerial or ground support or helped evacuate personnel from Benghazi,” the report said.

As for Brennan and drones, Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of a new report called “Reforming U.S. Drone Strike Policies,” said Obama’s choice of him as CIA director “now places him as the lead executive authority over all CIA drone strikes. The real question is whether John Brennan’s move from the White House to Langley to be director of the CIA is in fact an effort for the CIA to get out of the drone strikes business.”

Zenko noted that Panetta recently said that the Pentagon, not the CIA, should be conducting the drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects.

But Zenko cautioned against those who would head into the Brennan hearing with high hopes for new information. Having read transcripts of the past 10 CIA director confirmation hearings, he said, “It would be unprecedented if there were an in-depth discussion about ongoing covert activities.” The Senate Intelligence Committee “simply doesn't work that way, especially under chairman Sen. (Dianne) Feinstein” of California, he said.

Zenko added that the most useful line of questioning of Brenna would be regarding his conceptions of airpower. Brennan has repeatedly used the cancer analogy for air strikes killing terrorists without damaging the surrounding “tissue.”

“That's a dangerous, antiseptic, and unrealistic conception of military force,” Zenko said.

Interrogation vs. deadly strikes
But Obama spokesman Jay Carney told reporters at a White House briefing Wednesday, “Far fewer civilians lose their lives in an effort to go after senior leadership in al-Qaida” by using drone attacks “as opposed to an effort to invade a country with hundreds and thousands of troops and take cities and towns.” Implication: if you want to avoid another Iraq or Afghanistan, then support Obama’s drone policy.

Carney said Obama believes “that we need to move forward with more transparency as well as create, in his words, a legal framework around how these decisions are made.” But Obama believes he has the full constitutional authority to order targeted killings -- “transparency” or no transparency.

For those skeptical of Obama’s policy, there will be two other possible lines of questioning directed at Brennan:

1. Do the foreign policy costs of Obama’s use of drones -- alienating and angering people in Muslim countries -- outweigh its benefits?
2. Does the drone policy suggest that Obama would rather kill jihadists than capture them? Adding more detainees to those already held at Guantanamo -- a facility he pledged to close but hasn’t -- could amount to a political public relations headache.

The drone strikes have been unpopular in Pakistan and other countries. Making the case that drone strikes have high costs as well as benefits, the former U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, told Reuters recently, “What scares me about drone strikes is how they are perceived around the world. The resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes … is much greater than the average American appreciates.”

Brennan has an opportunity on Thursday to rebut this view. He argued last August that “contrary to conventional wisdom, we see little evidence that these actions (drone strikes) are generating widespread anti-American sentiment or recruits” for al-Qaida. The targeted strikes against terrorists, he said, “are not the problem, they are part of the solution.”

Finally, Thursday’s Brennan hearing is a chance for senators on the panel to ask him whether Obama is using drone strikes as a less politically troublesome option than capturing detainees and putting them in Guantanamo.

This is an argument that former Bush administration officials such as ex-CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden and former CIA legal counsel John Rizzo have made.

Last week in a panel discussion at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, Hayden said interrogating al-Qaida operatives is a vital source of insight into the terrorists’ plans and capabilities:

But he warned, “We have made it so legally difficult and so politically dangerous to capture that it seems, from the outside looking in, that the default option is to take the terrorists off the battlefield in another sort of way” – in other words, by killing them. This could result in a loss of valuable intelligence.

Rizzo said, “It’s always been in the agency’s institutional DNA to want to collect intelligence by all sorts of means, especially human intelligence. You can’t collect human intelligence from a dead guy.”

Related:

White House: Congress to get classified drone info

4 key questions about controversial Justice Department drone memo

Legal experts fear implications of White House drone memo

President Barack Obama said if congressional negotiators cannot draft a full budget by March 1, they should at least come up with a short-term combination of spending cuts and revenue increases in order to stave off deep federal spending cuts scheduled for that date.

"If Congress can't act immediately on a bigger package, if they can't get a bigger package done by the time the sequester is scheduled to go into effect," Obama said, "then I believe that they should at least pass a smaller package of spending cuts and tax reforms that would delay the economically damaging effects of the sequester for a few more months until Congress finds a way to replace these cuts with a smarter solution."

Charles Dharapak / AP

President Barack Obama turns towards cameramen and reacts to a sound as he speaks in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013.

The sequester, reached as part of 2011 budget negotiations, was never actually supposed to take effect. Rather, its deep cuts, including almost $500 billion in defense spending over nine years, were put in place as a trigger to get Congress to agree to more comprehensive budget and tax reform.

House Speaker John Boehner released a written statement before Obama’s remarks, blaming the president for the sequester and saying he would not support any additional revenue increases.

“President Obama first proposed the sequester and insisted it become law,” Boehner said, adding, “We believe there is a better way to reduce the deficit, but Americans do not support sacrificing real spending cuts for more tax hikes."

In recent weeks, members of Congress appeared to be playing rhetorical chicken over the cuts, with some suggesting they were resigned to the across-the-board cuts.

“I think it’s more likely to happen,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was quoted as saying by the Washington Post last week.

But the White House has stood firm on the self-imposed cuts, with White House Press Secretary Jay Carney underscoring Friday that the sequester was always intended to be replaced.

“The negative consequences of implementation would be bad across the board," Carney said. "That's the point. So Congress needs to do its job."

And the president hinted that revenues would remain central to all budget negotiations, telling CBS in a Sunday interview that “there is no doubt we need additional revenue coupled with smart spending reductions in order to bring down our deficit."

Alex Brandon / AP

In this file photo, Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., speaks during a media availability, on Capitol Hill. Brown, who was defeated in his re-election bid, said Friday, Feb. 1, 2013 that he will not run for the Senate seat vacated by John Kerry, who was named secretary of state.

Updated 1:51 p.m. - Former Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown, won't look to reclaim a spot in the Senate in this summer's special election to replace outgoing Sen. John Kerry.

Brown decided against running in the special election, a Republican official told NBC News on Friday. The decision strengthens Democrats' chances of holding the seat in the special election in the June 25 special election.

"I was not at all certain that a third Senate campaign in less than four years, and the prospect of returning to a Congress even more partisan than the one I left, was really the best way for me to continue in public service at this time. And I know it’s not the only way for me to advance the ideals and causes that matter most to me," Brown said in a statement. "That is why I am announcing today that I will not be a candidate for the United States Senate in the upcoming special election."

The special election would have been Brown's third since his initial January 2010 election to the Senate, when he bested Democratic favorite Martha Coakley in an election to fill the seat of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. Brown's election came at the height of the fight over health care reform in Congress, and his victory was seen as the advent of the political influence of the Tea Party movement.

Recommended: Hagel's rough day

Brown styled himself as a relative moderate during his time in the Senate, breaking with Republicans to approving an overhaul of financial regulations and repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," among other issues. A former state senator, Brown was seen as the relative favorite to win re-election during a full term in this fall's general election until Democrats managed to convince Elizabeth Warren to enter the race. Warren beat Brown, 54 to 46 percent, in November.

Brown was seen as having an advantage had he decided to attempt to reclaim a Senate seat. A number of Democrats have endorsed Rep. Edward Markey for the Senate nomination, though Rep. Stephen Lynch will challenge Markey in the primary. Republicans maintain the discord in the Democratic primary could improve their chances of winning the election.

Updated at 5:53 p.m. ET – Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, President Barack Obama’s choice to be secretary of defense, finished a day-long marathon confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday, enduring nearly eight hours of testy and skeptical questions from Republicans.

At the start of Thursday’s hearing, it seemed nearly certain that the Senate would vote to confirm Hagel. But the nominee labored at certain points during the day to clarify and explain his comments. Whether his occasional stumbles were serious enough to jeopardize his confirmation was not clear by the end of the testimony.

There are 55 senators in the Democratic caucus and 45 Senate Republicans, so if there’s no filibuster, Hagel would seem assured of confirmation. The last time the Senate rejected a Cabinet nominee was in 1989 when there was a Republican president and a Democratic-controlled Senate. 

Republican senators confronted Hagel with quotations from statements he had made months or years ago – and sometimes he apologized for them or amended them.

Late in the day Sen. Mike Lee, R- Utah, asked Hagel whether he’d said in 2003 that Israel keeps Palestinians “caged up like animals” and whether he still believes that.

Recommended: US aid seems secure despite Egyptian turmoil

“Like many things I’ve said, I would like to go back and change the words and the meaning,” Hagel told Lee. “If I had a chance to go back and edit it, I would. I regret that I used those words.”

But he said he’d made his statement “in a larger context … (addressing) the frustration in what’s happening (in Israel) which is not in Israel’s interest” and mentioned the need “to find ways that we can help bring peace and security to Israel.”

Quizzed by both Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Sen. David Vitter, R- La., on a statement he’d made calling the Iranian government a “legitimate” one, Hagel said, “I should have said ‘recognized’ instead of ‘legitimate.’”

At one point he told Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R- Ga., regarding U.S. policy toward Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons: “I’ve just been handed a note that I misspoke and said I supported the president’s position on ‘containment.’ If I said that, I meant to say that obviously – his position on containment – we don’t have a position on containment.”

Hagel then said, “I’ve had more attention paid to my words in the last eight weeks than I ever thought possible.”

This prompted Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D- Mich., to intervene, “Just to make sure your correction is clear, we do have a position on containment – which is we do not favor containment.” Hagel quickly concurred with Levin’s statement.

Hagel told the panel in his opening remarks that he is “fully committed to the president's goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” and that “all options must be on the table to achieve that goal. My policy is one of prevention, and not one of containment and the President has made clear that is the policy of our government.”

At another point, Hagel, explaining his criticism quoted in a 2008 book by Aaron David Miller, of “the Jewish lobby” and his allegation that “it intimidates a lot of people” in Congress – comments for which Hagel has apologized – said he ought to not have used the word “intimidates.”

“I should have used ‘influence,’” he said.

Later, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., challenged Hagel to “name one dumb thing we’ve been goaded into doing” by the pro-Israel lobby or to identify one member of Congress whom the pro-Israel lobby had intimidated. Hagel said, “I didn't have in mind a single person," and did not identify any policy the U.S. government had been goaded into.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, played Hagel a recording of an interview Hagel did in 2009 with an al Jazeera program. A listener submitted a question asking about “the image of the United States is that of the world’s bully” and whether the United States needed “to change the perception and the reality” before asking other nations to reduce their arsenals. In that 2009 program Hagel began his reply by saying, “Her observation is a good one … .”

When Cruz asked Hagel to explain this reply, he said Thursday, “I think my comment was it was a relevant and good observation. I don’t think I said that I agree with it.”

Early in the testimony, the Iraq war and President George W. Bush’s 2007 surge of U.S. troops into Iraq became the heated focus of the hearing.

Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., repeatedly pressed Hagel, a fellow Vietnam War veteran, on whether he had been right or wrong to say that the 2007 surge was “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder since Vietnam.”

When McCain angrily said “Will you please answer the question?” Hagel told McCain “I’m not going to give you a yes or no answer … I’ll defer that judgment to history.”

When McCain shot back that Hagel had been wrong about the surge, Hagel said his “most dangerous blunder” comment had been “not just about the 2007 surge but the overall war of choice going into Iraq” in 2003.

As a senator, Hagel voted for the congressional resolution authorizing Bush to invade Iraq, but later turned critical of Bush’s conduct of the operation.

Other Republicans on the committee repeatedly pressed Hagel on his support for endorsement of Global Zero, the movement calling for abolition of nuclear weapons by 2030.

Hagel served on the Global Zero U.S. Nuclear Policy Commission which issued a report last May calling for an 80 percent reduction in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Hagel told ranking Republican committee member Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma that his position “has never been unilateral disarmament.”

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Former Senator Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., testifies during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to be Defense Secretary, on Capitol Hill, Jan. 31, 2013.

And he said the Global Zero report was discussing “illustrative possibilities” and “scenarios” and wasn’t urging specific policies.

But last May’s Global Zero report, which Hagel signed on to, says that a drastically smaller U.S. arsenal could be negotiated bilaterally with Russia – “or implemented unilaterally.”

In his opening statement Hagel pledged that he would maintain an effective nuclear arsenal. “America's nuclear deterrent over the last 65 years has played a central role in ensuring global security and the avoidance of a World War III. I am committed to modernizing our nuclear arsenal,” he said.

Hagel, who was seriously wounded while serving as an Army infantryman in Vietnam, was a Republican senator from Nebraska from 1997 to 2009 but did not support Republican presidential candidates McCain in 2008 or Mitt Romney last year.

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' words during a brief opening statement at a Senate hearing on gun violence were careful, slow and deliberate.

But they were firm: "Too many children are dying," she said Wednesday, breaking up the syllables during her testimony to open a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun laws.

Slideshow: Ariz. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

"It will be hard, but the time is NOW," said Giffords, who has embarked on an arduous recovery after being critically wounded at Tucson Safeway while meeting with constituents in early 2011. "You. Must. Act. Be bold. Be cour-ag-eous. Amer-i-cans are count-ing on you."

Giffords has emerged as one of the leading gun safety advocates prompted by the December 2012 shootings in Newtown, Conn., that killed 20 elementary school children and 6 adults.

She walked into Wednesday's hearing, making a surprise appearance at the first gun-related hearing held in Congress since the Newtown shooting. Her husband, Mark Kelly, held her hand and carefully guided her to her seat in front of the Senate panel.

Related: Obama's gun plan begins slow, scrutinized trek through Congress

She spoke for just over a minute. Kelly, who was set to testify at length, helped her back out of the room.

"Gabby's gift for speech is a distant memory," Kelly planned to say later in the hearing. "She struggles to walk, and she is partially blind. Her right arm is completely paralyzed." 

Giffords and Kelly were to testify ahead of the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre, as well as three other witnesses.

Updated 3:17 p.m. - Democrats looking to sustain public pressure for new gun laws in the wake of the Newtown shootings clashed Wednesday with Republicans and the National Rifle Association over universal background checks, a far less dramatic proposed change than an assault weapons ban or limits on high capacity magazines.

"My problem with background checks is you're never going to get criminals to go through universal background checks," Wayne LaPierre, CEO and chief lobbyist for the NRA, said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence, the first since President Barack Obama laid out new measures to curb gun crime. "None of it makes any sense in the real world."

Related: Obama's gun plan begins slow, scrutinized trek through Congress

The obvious drama in the packed hearing room lasted over four hours, with passions running well beyond the normal staid congressional panel. The emotion was heightened by the presence of some major iconic figures in the battle over whether – and how – to tighten federal regulation of firearms.

LaPierre sat at the opposite end of the witness table from Mark Kelly, the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Critically wounded at a shooting in Tucson in 2011, Giffords opened the hearing with a dramatic plea, haltingly asking Congress to "do something to prevent gun violence."

Susan Walsh / AP

Mark Kelly, husband of former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords; David Kopel, law professor at Strum College in Denver; Baltimore Police Chief James Johnson; Gayle Trotter, senior fellow with the Independent Women's Forum; and National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre, are sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013, prior to testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence.

"My wife would not have been sitting here today if we had stronger background checks," Kelly told the committee later in the hearing. 

Under current law, people can buy guns through a private seller without getting a background check. It's commonly referred to as the "gun show loophole." The Obama administration's proposal to close this loophole by requiring background checks for all sales of firearms dominated much of Wednesday's hearing.

Related: Giffords 'Too many children are dying … you must act'

The exchanges at the hearing illustrated the sharp political divide over changing the nation's gun laws – and the difficulty in enacting any of the more dramatic new measures included in the package the White House is pushing, which includes an assault weapons ban and limits on high capacity magazines.

"The deaths in Newtown should not be used to put forward every gun control measure that has been floating around for years," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the committee's ranking member.

"Emotion often leads to bad policies," said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who called the 1994 assault weapons ban a "singularly ineffective piece of legislation."

Even Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from rural Vermont, did not explicitly endorse the assault weapons ban that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced last week. But he did call for background checks, sharply challenging LaPierre on the subject.

Slideshow: Ariz. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

The NRA's position on background checks is a switch from the organization's position 14 years ago. "We think it's reasonable to provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere for anyone," LaPierre told a congressional panel in 1999.

A place where there was some common ground: gun trafficking. 

“We may be able to work together to prevent straw purchasers from trafficking in guns,” Grassley said, a sentiment echoed by others on the panel.

The obvious legislative hurdles -- on display Wednesday -- help explain why Democrats are relying on a campaign-like strategy and a series of public events to try to ratchet up public demand for stricter regulations on firearms. Giffords' story makes her a compelling public advocate.

"Too many children are dying," she said Wednesday, breaking up the syllables during her testimony.

"It will be hard, but the time is now," said Giffords, who has embarked on an arduous recovery since she was shot in the head, affecting her speech. "You. Must. Act. Be bold. Be courageous. Americans are counting on you."

She walked into Wednesday's hearing, her husband holding her hand and carefully guiding her to her seat in front of the Senate panel.

She spoke for just over a minute; her husband helped her back out of the room.

"Gabby's gift for speech is a distant memory," Kelly said later. "She struggles to walk, and she is partially blind. Her right arm is completely paralyzed."

In trying to counter the emotional testimony, Republicans repeatedly praised Giffords’ perseverance and focused on trying to raise doubts about whether the measures Democrats had proposed to combat gun violence would work. They insisted current gun laws aren't being prosecuted effectively.

“This discussion, I sit here and listen to it, and my reaction is how little it has to do with the problem of keeping our kids safe and how much it has to do with the decadelong, two decadelong, gun ban agenda when we don’t even enforce the laws on the books,” LaPierre said.

Wednesday's hearings were the first in a planned series of sessions on gun laws. Leahy said Wednesday that he plans to begin the process of crafting a gun package in his committee next month. With Obama and Vice President Joe Biden publicly making the case for new laws, gun control advocates expect any action to begin in the Senate; the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has shown little appetite for taking up the issue.

In the wake of Newtown, a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed that 56 percent of Americans believe gun laws should be more strict. The survey showed just 7 percent believe gun restrictions should be less strict.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday that he planned to bring gun legislation to the Senate floor -- though with an open process that could allow senators to make changes. Such a process would likely make it harder to pass the bill.

“It’s very clear that there’s going to be a bill brought out of the committee, brought to the Senate floor, and there will be an amendment process there,” Reid said. He added that senators would be allowed to “bring up whatever amendments they want that deal with this issue.”

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin said Saturday he will not seek a sixth term in 2014, a decision that frees a new generation of Iowa Democrats to seek higher office and eases some of the burden Republicans face in retaking the Senate.

Harkin, chairman of an influential Senate committee, announced his decision during an interview with The Associated Press, and said the move could surprise some.

But the 73-year-old cited his age — he would be 81 at the end of a sixth term — as a factor in the decision, saying it was time to pass the torch he has held for nearly 30 years.

"I just think it's time for me to step aside," Harkin told the AP.

Harkin, first elected in 1984, ranks 7th in seniority, and 4th among majority Democrats. He is chairman of the health, education, labor and pensions committee, and chairman of the largest appropriations subcommittee.

He has long aligned with the Senate's more liberal members, and his signature legislative accomplishment is the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. He also served as a key salesman of President Barack Obama's 2010 health care bill to the wary left.

"I'm not saying that giving this up and walking away is easy. It's very tough," Harkin said at his rural Iowa home south of Des Moines. "But I'm not quitting today. I'm not passing the torch sitting down."

Harkin's news defied outward signals. He has $2.7 million in his campaign war chest, second most among members nearing the end of their terms, and was planning a gala fundraiser in Washington, D.C., next month featuring pop star Lady Gaga.

The news creates a rare open Senate seat Iowa. Harkin, Iowa's junior senator, is outranked by Sen. Charles Grassley, who has held the state's other seat since 1980.

Attention will turn immediately to U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, a fourth-term Democrat from Waterloo. Braley, who was traveling in Iowa Saturday, did not immediately respond to e-mail and telephone requests to his staff by the AP.

Harkin held open the possibility of endorsing a Democrat before the party's primary if the candidate fit the profile of "someone who is progressive, who is a pragmatic progressive."

Although no Republicans have stepped forward, Harkin's news gives the GOP's private huddles new life.

"There are lots of conversations, but it's very early still," said Nick Ryan, an Iowa Republican campaign fundraiser.

U.S. Rep. Tom Latham of Clive is a seasoned Republican congressman, a veteran appropriations committee member and a robust fundraiser who has survived challenges to win 10 consecutive terms. Aides to Latham declined to comment beyond issuing a statement saying the congressman "respects Sen. Harkin's decision (and) looks forward to continuing to work with him."

But with opening a door in Iowa, Harkin has created a potential headache for his party nationally.

Democrats likely would have had the edge in 2014 with the seat, considering Harkin's fundraising prowess and healthy approval. A poll by the Des Moines Register taken last fall showed a majority of Iowans approved of his job performance.

Democrats hold a 55-45 advantage in the Senate, requiring Republicans to gain six seats to win back the chamber. But Democrats have more seats to defend in 2014_20 compared to only 13 for Republicans.

And the president's party historically loses seats in the midterm elections after his re-election. Obama, a Democrat, was re-elected last year.

Democrats will be scrambling to hold onto the seat in GOP-leaning West Virginia, where five-term Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller recently announced he would not seek re-election. Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito is running for the Senate seat.

Democratic incumbents also face tough re-election races in Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina and Alaska — all states carried by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in November's presidential election.

Since the election, Harkin has stepped up his role as one of the Senate's leading liberal populists.

He was a vocal opponent late last year of President Barack Obama's concession to lift the income threshold for higher taxes to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. Harkin instead supported raising taxes on all earners making more than $250,000 a year.

He also endorsed Obama's call for banning assault rifles and larger ammunition magazines in the wake of the Connecticut school shooting last month

Despite Harkin's strong political position, he has faced questions about his and his wife Ruth's role in developing a namesake policy institute at Iowa State University, Harkin's alma mater.

The Harkins and their supporters have been pushing for the institute to house papers highlighting his signature achievements, including the ADA and shaping farm policy as the former chairman of the agriculture committee.

In one long-running dispute, they've pressed ISU's president to rescind rules restricting the institute's ability to research agriculture, which Harkin derided as a violation of academic freedom. And Harkin has evaded questions about his role in fundraising for the institute after disclosure reports showed some of its largest donors are firms that have benefited from his policies.

Harkin dismissed that those questions had any bearing on his decision.

Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday downplayed the importance of passing an assault weapons ban, even as Senate Democrats began a formal push to revive restrictions on those firearms.

"I'm much less concerned quite frankly about what you call an assault weapon than I am about magazines and the number of rounds that can be held in a magazine," said Biden, who discussed gun violence during a Google hangout Thursday afternoon. 

With the chat, the vice president looked to sustain public pressure for national action on gun control in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., massacre of 20 elementary school children and 6 adults. President Barack Obama is pushing a comprehensive set of actions to reduce gun violence, including universal background checks for gun buyers, a ban on high-capacity magazines, and a ban on actual assault weapons. 

In the wake of Newtown, a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed that 56 percent of Americans believe gun laws should be more strict. The survey showed just 7 percent believe gun restrictions should be less strict.

Still, Biden's comments and careful language -- "I don't view it as gun control, I view it as gun safety," he said -- underscored the political reality: Getting an outright ban through a divided Congress in the face of opposition from the National Rifle Association and other groups is unlikely, and the fight is likely to focus on other measures, like the background checks and limits on magazine size.

Biden's comments came hours after Senate Democrats, led by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, displayed various assault weapons at a Capitol Hill press conference. Feinstein introduced legislation Thursday to ban 158 specific types of those guns. 

The bill would also ban magazines that can fire more than 10 rounds of ammunition at a time. Both are similar to proposals included in the White House recommendations.

Shooting victims and uniformed police officers were on Capitol Hill Thursday to endorse Feinstein's bill.

"If the slaughter of 20 babies does not capture and hold your attention, then I give up. Because I don't know what else will," said Charles Ramsey, the Philadelphia police commissioner and head of the Major Cities Chiefs Association. "We have to pass legislation."

But Feinstein herself openly acknowledged that getting Congress to pass a weapons ban similar to the one that expired in 2004 will be difficult, if not impossible.

RELATED: Sen. Feinstein introduces stringent assault weapons ban, foresees 'uphill' battle

"Getting this bill signed into law will be an uphill battle, and I recognize that -- but it is a battle worth having,'' Feinstein said.

Biden pointed out Thursday that crimes with assault weapons aren't as widespread than gun violence perpetrated with other types of guns that have been equipped to fire dozens of rounds at a time.

Assault weapons "account for a small percentage of the gun crimes in American," said Biden, who led the White House task force on gun safety after Newtown.

"More people out there get shot with a Glock that has … cartridges that you can have magazines that can put two, 10, 8, 12, 15, 30 shells in it, then from any assault weapon you see,” Biden said.

He said  that limiting magazines could have saved lives in Tucson, where former Rep. Gabby Giffords was shot and a 9-year-old girl was killed, and in Newtown, where shooter Adam Lanza might have had to stop 10 or more times to reload his gun.

The vice president did say that banning assault weapons would help make people safer.

The NRA dismissed Feinstein's bill, insisting gun bans "do not work."

"We are confident Congress will reject Sen. Feinstein's wrong-headed approach," the group said in a statement.

John Moore / Getty Images

Sens. John Kerry and John McCain during the presidential inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol Jan. 21, 2013 in Washington.

One day after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee conducted a sometimes fractious hearing with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over last September's attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, the panel holds its confirmation hearing Thursday morning on the man President Barack Obama has chosen to succeed her: Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

Wednesday’s hearing with Clinton in the witness chair was marked by some anger and recriminations over the attack in Libya that resulted in the killing of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Clinton at times clashed with Republicans over the administration’s version of events in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi attacks, at one point forcefully arguing with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., over the precise origins or motives of the attackers.

She intensely asked, "Was it because of a protest or is it because of guys out for a walk one night and they decide they go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?"

Clinton also sketched the strategic landscape that Kerry will face in his new job if he’s confirmed by the Senate, as is nearly certain.

Clinton told the committee that the United States cannot allow the North African nation of Mali, just south of Algeria, to become a base of operations for al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), warning of the risk of AQIM attacks on the United States itself.

“We are in for a struggle,” she predicted. “But it is a necessary struggle. We cannot permit northern Mali to become a safe haven. People say to me all the time, well, AQIM hasn't attacked the United States. Well, before 9-11, 2001, we hadn't been attacked on our homeland since, I guess, the War of 1812 and Pearl Harbor. So you can't say, well, because they haven't done something they're not going to do it.”

She also sounded the alarm about the proliferation of weapons from caches in Libya that were “liberated” after Moammar Gadhafi was toppled, with U.S. and NATO help, in 2011.

“Libya was awash in weapons” before Gadhafi was overthrown, she said. “Obviously, there were additional weapons introduced. But the vast, vast majority came out of Gadhafi warehouses ... and then went on the black market, were seized by militias, seized by other groups, and have made their way out of Libya into other countries in the region, and have made their way to Syria, we believe.”

She said the Algerian terrorists who held foreigners hostage at a natural gas plant last week, killing 37 of them, were armed with weapons from Libya.

Syria a looming challenge
Clinton also highlighted another looming challenge for Obama and Kerry: the civil war in Syria in which 60,000 people have been killed. Obama has decided to not impose a no-fly zone against the regime of President Bashar Assad, but he now faces growing bipartisan pressure to give more aid to the Syrian opposition.

On Tuesday, a group of three Democratic and two Republican senators just back from a trip to the Middle East urged Obama to send more aid to the Syrian refugees; some urged him to impose a no-fly zone and to provide weapons to anti-Assad fighters.

“We are all in agreement that more needs to be done to assist militarily the opposition within Syria,” said one of those senators, Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. He added that the debate over what the Obama administration ought to be doing in Syria “is going to be reinvigorated” because the fall of Assad, thought to be imminent a year ago, now is in doubt.

“Clearly now, he is using his air force for nothing more than the slaughter and massacre of his own people,” Blumenthal said. “And the United States ought to be finding a way to either disarm or deflect or somehow diminish that power.”

Clinton said Wednesday in her Senate testimony that, “It is a red line for this administration with respect to Syria concerning the use of chemical weapons. Syria, as you probably know, in addition to having the fourth largest army before this revolution has a very significant supply of chemical and biological weapons.”

The Obama administration, she said, is trying “to prevent those from falling into the wrong hands, Jihadist hands, Hezbollah hands .. .”

She added, “This Pandora's box, if you will, of weapons coming out of these countries in the Middle East and North Africa is the source of one of our biggest threats.”

Kerry, a member of the Senate since 1985, is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee but will be ceding that post to Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.

A Navy veteran of the Vietnam War, Kerry was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 and won 59 million votes, but lost to President George W. Bush.

In announcing the nomination, Obama said on Dec. 21, “John’s entire life has prepared him for this role.  As the son of a Foreign Service officer, he has a deep respect for the men and women of the State Department -- the role they play in advancing our interests and values, the risks that they undertake and the sacrifices that they make along with their families.”  

Related: Clinton takes responsibility in Benghazi attack, clashes with Republicans

As they prepare to settle in for another four years of President Barack Obama, Republicans are already busily working on their roadmap to retake the levers of power in Washington. Whether they will need a modest re-calibration or a wholesale reinvention remains an open question.

Obama's November victory arguably marked a new low point for the GOP. The Republican Party now wrestles with a president unburdened with the stresses of an impending re-election campaign and enjoying relatively high popularity.

What’s more, Obama has already worked to set in motion an aggressive – and mostly progressive – agenda that makes most conservatives cringe.

For Republicans, the work to re-position themselves to win back the White House in 2016, and, before that, shore up majorities in the House and Senate, has already begun. And a key step toward reaching those goals, said Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, involves making the party more inviting to voters who do not traditionally compose the party’s base.

Jason Reed / Reuters

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus gavels the 2012 Republican National Convention into session during the opening session of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida August 27, 2012.

“We didn’t lose Wisconsin because we weren’t Facebooking pheasant hunters,” he said. “We need more voters.”

Democrats’ victories prompted a round of hand-wringing and recrimination in the immediate aftermath of the election. Having been drubbed among women and Latino voters, some Republicans argued for finally embracing some sort of immigration reform, and directed their ire toward those high-profile Republican candidates who made controversial comments about abortion and rape that fall. Still others pointed to the Obama campaign’s decisive advantage over Romney in digital outreach and voter targeting, while others laid the blame for the party’s defeat squarely with Romney himself.

“This certainly isn't the first time a party loses a presidential election and has to figure out how it does better,” said Henry Barbour, a Republican National Committee member from Mississippi who’s helping to lead the “Growth and Opportunity Project,” the RNC-commissioned review of the party’s failings in the 2012 elections. “Things are never as good as you think, or as bad as you think.”

Some of the project’s recommendations, which are on course for release as soon as March, are glaringly obvious. Republicans are virtually unanimous in agreeing on improved digital tools to court voters, as well as improved outreach to key voting communities – like Hispanics or women voters.

Priebus said he’s taking a cue from former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s “50 State Strategy” he enacted as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

“We have to compete everywhere again. You go back and look at the electoral map in 1988, and you look at the states that were red. It’s stunning,” he said. “I think the charge for us is to run up the hill and make the case everywhere that the Republican Party is the home for more Americans.”

'Battle over strategy'
But as party leaders fan out to hear from elected officials and grassroots activists alike about the trajectory of the party, the GOP on Capitol Hill has been anything but a tribute to party unity.

If House Speaker John Boehner’s remarks about accepting new revenue in the aftermath of Obama’s victory were emblematic of Republicans’ soul-searching after the election, then the weeks since then have painted a vivid portrait of just how divided the GOP is about its path forward.

“If we’re split on anything, it’s on strategy, not the final goals,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., a darling of conservatives. “I think what you’re seeing now is a battle over strategy, not over principle.”

The battle over the so-called fiscal cliff laid bare many of the fissures that plagued Republicans in Congress for the past two years, bringing the government to the brink of shutdown several times and almost tipping the government into a default on its debt. The party’s ability to speak with one voice has been hampered by familiar internal, ideological divisions.

When Boehner offered to raise taxes on millionaires – a concession, but one that Obama dismissed outright – conservatives undercut their leader’s bargaining position by refusing to pass it out of the House.

Even when Democrats won an income tax hike, it was over the objections of most House Republicans; Boehner won another term as speaker over the defections of some high-profile conservatives, including Mulvaney, who did not vote.

“I do believe that, as a party, we need to focus on the things that unite us,” Barbour said. “Folks in the party aren't going to agree on everything, and that's OK. The Republican Party is a diverse, broad party.”

And as party leaders attempt to put a fresh face on the Grand Old Party, the first few months of Obama’s second term seem destined to test the divisions among Republicans.

The president has signaled his intention to seek comprehensive immigration reform and new, stricter controls on firearms – two initiatives that could split conservatives who want to hold the ideological line from Republicans who wish to shed the party’s image of intractability, and cut some sort of a deal with Obama.

Those battles will play out alongside what’s expected to be a bruising fight in just a few weeks over raising the debt ceiling, continuing government spending and dealing with the automatic spending cuts in the fiscal cliff, which were delayed for two months past the beginning of this year. The deadlines for all three of those issues fall within a few weeks of each other in late February and early March.

'We have a mish-mash'
And already, some Republicans are openly discussing the possibility of a shutdown or default, things which Boehner and other GOP leaders had openly disavowed during similar fights in 2011. Mulvaney said “the world is not going to end” if the U.S. defaults on its debt.

“No one wants to default; not even the most right-wing nutjob wants to default,” he said. “But do we want to throw money at paying the light bill at the Department of Education?”

But as Republicans wrestle with these divisions, there’s always the hope of the one development that seems to solve most problems in politics: winning.

After Romney’s loss and Boehner’s struggles with his rank-and-file, Republicans lack for any natural leader behind whom the party could rally. The country is still years away from the next presidential primary, a contest which might test many of these same fault lines within the GOP.

“It's absolutely a challenge that we face. The Democrats have Barack Obama, and we have a mish-mash,” Mulvaney said. “We have the speaker of the House, the minority leader of the Senate, various outside groups and very vocal folks over in the Senate, along with a cast of presidential cast-offs in the last four years. We haven't really coalesced yet.”

Related stories:
Obama chides GOP on debt limit: 'We are not a deadbeat nation'
Social conservatives say they deserve seat at table in retooled GOP
Rape remarks sink two Republican Senate hopefuls