Chuck Hagel's Warning To Bush and GOP

While praising Barack Obama and needling McCain, Senator Chuck Hagel had this to say about Bush and his administration:

When asked to respond to rumors circulating within political circles that the Bush administration was ginning up the possibility of war with Iran, the Senator even raised the specter of impeachment.

“You’ve got the power of impeachment, now that is a very defined measure if you are willing to bring charges against the president at all. You can’t just say I disagree with him, let’s impeach him,” said Hagel. An attack on Iran without Congress’ consent, he added, “would bring with it… outstanding political consequences, including for the Republican Party.”

You turn your back for a second...

...and the world goes wacky! Well at least a little wackier than usual.

After a well needed weekend getaway with my lovely fiancee, I come back to find that Chuck Hagel has announced that he'll announce his political future later this year, Alberto Gonzales is feeling his collar tighten (and Jack Cafferty calls him a weasel!), Karl Rove is implicated as being involved in the federal attorney firings and the White House admits it, Pappy Bush collapses on a golf course, Max Cleland bitchslaps Cheney and Bush in a TV interview with Wolf Blitzer, and General Kevin Kiley is the latest head to roll in the continuing Walter Reed scandal.

MAN! What a weekend! I'd love to continue because there's plenty more to cover, but alas, it's accountant appointment day to deal with my 2006 taxes. So hopefully I'll have time to comment on the above stories later.

But let me get an easy one out of the way now. What the hell is an 82 year old man doing playing golf in 94° heat?! Even I get faint after 18 holes in that kind of weather. What an idiot.

Flip Flop... Flip?

In a letter distributed yesterday evening to Senate leaders, John Warner (Va.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and five other GOP supporters of the resolution threatened to attach their measure to any bill sent to the floor in the coming weeks.

Too little, too late, jackasses. These are the same people (except for Norm Coleman and Susan Collins) that voted to block debate on their own resolutions just two days before.

What a sad waste of time... Did you see that? Another helicopter went down. Ooh, did you hear that loud noise? Another car bomb exploded in another marketplace killing yet more and more innocent men, women and children. I guess we can wait and stall and play more political games. What's the rush?

GOP Blocks Senate Debate on Iraq

Well, there it is. Only two Republicans, Norm Coleman and Susan Collins, voted to debate the issue of opposing the escalation in Iraq. Senators Warner and Hagel, who bloviated for weeks, wasting valuable time and spending taxpayer dollars in the process, voted with the party line. How can you work for weeks on a resolution and then vote against having a debate on it?

The GOP leader Mitch McConnell claims it is in the interest of fairness that other amendments be heard. Well, hell! Why not have all 100 Senators propose amendments so they can debate this thing for the next two years while American troops die, get their limbs blown off and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis continue to be slaughtered?!

“Senator McConnell led his Republican troops off the cliff,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Harry Reid changed his vote and sided with Republicans in a procedural move to allow him the option to reopen the issue.

Hagel: "If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes!"

I'm really starting to doubt this guy is a Republican. Senator Chuck Hagel went ballistic on the Resolution Committee (actually, just the Republicans) for not doing more on the issue. He was the only Republican Senator to vote in favor of opposing troop escalation (or rather "troop increase") in Iraq. This after his GQ interview came out bashing the Bush Crime Family. GO, CHUCK, GO!

At this point, considering that 21 Republican Senators are up for re-election in 2008, I can't see how the fractured Republican party won't continue to desert the sinking ship of SS George the Liar. It may take more time, but at this rate, someone's got to take the ball and run with it in an attempt to blow the final cannonball in the hull of George the Liar.

Hagel: "Why are you elected? If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes!"

Chuck Hagel's GQ Interview

Senator Chuck Hagel, the most outspoken Republican Senator against the war in Iraq was interviewed in GQ Magazine, and boy is it scathing!

GQ: What would it take to secure Baghdad?

Hagel: It’s not ours to secure. We have never understood that! We have framed this in a way that never made sense: “Win or lose in Iraq.” Wait a minute! There is no win or loss for us.

**************
GQ: It {the resolution] said, “to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.”

Hagel: In the event that all other options failed. So it’s not as simple as “I voted for the war.” That wasn’t the resolution.

***********
Hagel: ...finally, begrudgingly, they sent over a resolution for Congress to approve. Well, it was astounding. It said they could go anywhere in the region.

GQ: It wasn’t specific to Iraq?

Hagel: Oh no. It said the whole region! They could go into Greece or anywhere. I mean, is Central Asia in the region? I suppose! Sure as hell it was clear they meant the whole Middle East. It was anything they wanted. It was literally anything. No boundaries. No restrictions.

GQ: They expected Congress to let them start a war anywhere they wanted in the Middle East?

Hagel: Yes. Yes. Wide open. We had to rewrite it. Joe Biden, Dick Lugar, and I stripped the language that the White House had set up, and put our language in it.

Hagel on Face The Nation

Look everyone, an endangered species. A Republican! No, not the ones who are currently in the party. One who actually believes in fiscal responsibility and smaller government, and doesn't just say they do.

Sen. Chuck Hagel had plenty to say on Face The Nation this past Sunday including, "The party that I first voted for on top of a tank in the Mekong Delta in 1968 is not the party I see today, Bob. Fiscal responsibility, engagement with others, pro-trade, personal responsibility, less government--that's not who we are today. Parties should be the framework of philosophies and beliefs."

You can watch the video here.

Here's part of the transcript:

SCHIEFFER: The [Washington Post today] reports that when President Bush met with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki back on November 30th that Maliki gave him the following information. It was his plan. He said that he wanted no more US troops in Iraq, he wanted US troops in Baghdad to withdraw to the outskirts of the city and let the Iraqis take over in Baghdad, and he wanted other US troops to shift to the borders with Iran and Syria so they could concentrate on tracking down al-Qaeda. The president, we are told, said that he didn't think that would work, that it would cause Baghdad to just collapse into chaos. But frankly, that sounds like the recommendations that the Baker-Hamilton Commission reported back after studying this problem for about a year. What is your reaction to that?

Senator CHUCK HAGEL (Republican, Nebraska; Foreign Relations Committee): I think you're brief analysis is correct. It does include what the prime minister framed up for the president, if that story is correct. Very much the foundation of the 79 recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton report, which I supported, which I have said publicly and privately that I thought the administration should seize upon that, build upon that. Because first, it represents a diplomatic framework for dealing with, not just with the immediate problems in Iraq, but the future. In fact, the Iraqis were already doing this, reaching out the Iranians, reaching out to the Syrians. They've been to Damascus and Tehran. That is going forward. And I'm very happy, very pleased, because I think, in the end, some of us believe, I suspect Baker-Hamilton believe, that there is going to be--have to be a diplomatic resolution. That's going to include a diplomatic accommodation, but also a political accommodation within Iraq that's going to require some shifts. And what Maliki was talking about I think makes sense. In fact, the resolution that Senators Biden and Levin and Snow and I have put forward details, in some ways, and references, in general ways, exactly what you just talked about, exactly what supposedly Maliki told the president and is incorporated in the Baker-Hamilton report.

SCHIEFFER: So you think the president made a mistake here in not accepting some of these recommendations?

Sen. HAGEL: I've said that he has made a mistake. I think, for whatever reason, the advice he got was not very solid, because I have believed from the beginning, Bob, that the future of Iraq will be determined by the Iraqi people. We can help. For example, the territorial integrity of Iraq. That is something that we could do, to start helping seal off those western borders. That's what Maliki's talked about. We had a panel of four former retired four star generals before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week, various ideas and positions. But one of those generals said that this was a fool's errand to continue to put American troops in the middle of a sectarian civil war. I think Maliki was moving in the right direction. I hope he continues to move in the right direction. The future of Iraq is not going to be determined by American military. And, by the way, Generals Casey and Abizaid said this in open hearing in November. So I too found that front page story in The Washington Post both puzzling and also encouraging.
****************

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this, senator. Vice President Cheney says this sort of thing [Congressional resolutions] undercuts the troops. What's your response?

Sen. HAGEL: Well, let me tell you this. I served in Vietnam in 1968. Others did, too--Jim Webb, John McCain, John Kerry, other members in the House. In 1968, when I was there with my brother, worst year, deaths, I would have welcomed the Congress of the United States to pay a little attention as to what was going on. I would have welcomed that. That is complete nonsense to say we're undercutting the support of the troops. What are we about?
We're Article I of the Constitution. We're a co-equal branch of government. Are we not to participate? Are we not to say anything? Are we not to register our sense of where we're going in this country on foreign policy?
****************
SCHIEFFER: The president says if we pull out, it would be chaos there. What do you think would happen if the president took your suggestions and we began to draw down troops?

Sen. HAGEL: ...We have right now anarchy in Iraq. We have disaster in Iraq. It's not getting better; it's getting worse. So to say somehow that, if we eventually leave there, it's going to be anarchy, no one wants a defeat. No one wants to put America or the Middle East in a worse situation. I've not heard of anybody doing that or wanting to do that. What we're trying to do is come up with a relevant, realistic approach bringing the partners in, letting Maliki do what he suggested to the president he'd do, and find a way out of the militarily committed peace of this. That's what Baker-Hamilton said. That's what I believe.
***************
Not bad for a real Republican. This government could do a lot of things if more politicians were like Hagel, putting aside their partisan labels and trying to figure out what works best for the country instead of what works best for them or their party.