In this photo provided by ABC News, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.,
appears for an interview with George Stephanopolous on ABC's This Week, in Washington,
Sunday, March 25, 2007. (AP Photo/ABC News, Lauren Victoria Burke)
Posted on 03/31/2007 5:15:50 AM PDT by ThreePuttinDude
I hate writing about Senator Hagel of Nebraska. This man is one-half of the State's voice in the U.S. Senate, and he cannot decide if he is a Republican or a Democrat on critical national issues. Does this mean that he is independent and thus, his is a voice for which we should be grateful?
The distinction is, in fact, very important. By electing our Senators and Representatives, citizens are given a voice in the Federal government. That citizen voice belongs in Congress, not in the office of the President, except for the opportunity every four years, when we can speak on the subject of who should occupy the office.
Senator Hagel is unable to decide if we should carry a big stick or simply lie down and play dead. Senator Hagel does not seem to know, if he wants to be President, is the President, or if we simply do not need a strong President after all.
The following is a snip from an AP news story that I read on the FoxNews website, and it has once again forced me to write about my least favorite subject on earth.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
In this photo provided by ABC News, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.,
appears for an interview with George Stephanopolous on ABC's This Week, in Washington,
Sunday, March 25, 2007. (AP Photo/ABC News, Lauren Victoria Burke)
Inside the Hagelian mind.
Allow me a few moments to interpret the Senator's comments. Senator Hagel believes that a President, who leads according to principles, rather than by testing the political winds with his moistened finger, is completely off the reservation. Senator Hagel believes that if a sitting President insists that his policy or decision is correct, even though that decision or policy differs significantly with the slobbery spin from the opposition party, the ultimate course of action is to impeach the man.Hagel isn't even qualified to be dog catcher, let alone a Presidential contender. Nebraska, retire this clown before he does any more damage ot the nation!
God, how the DBM/DNC loves our spineless, backstabbing RINO's... they provide them with enough copy so that they can completely ignore the few, real conservatives who are out there.
According to what they say, the few supporters he has left
are the (D)'s in and around Lincoln. Figures doesn't it??
And when those same liberals write the history of the current time, they will refer to this as a heroic battle by Congress to limit the power of the executive branch.
It was David Schuster who referred to Hagel as a presidential candidate last night. Somehow... that got clipped out of my post. Maybe the moderator can't stand him either.
Time for those relatives to start working on ways to legally remove Hagel from office. Holy Gray Davis, Batman, I wonder if they can recall a Senator?
I'm one of the conservative people who are pi$$ed off at the guy!!..
I figure he knows he's toast as far as re-election goes so be prepared for him to get even nuttier...
The second most famous RINO.
Time for those relatives to start working on ways to legally remove Hagel from office. Holy Gray Davis, Batman, I wonder if they can recall a Senator?
I see little chance for that..We are a pretty loyal bunch around her..heck AG Bruining announced intrest in running for the senate ONLY if Hagel doesn't run again....nobody wants to look like they are against him..but in the privacy of the booth I think (hope) things are different..there just has to be a good alternative....
I suspect that the article is more correct than the author realizes when he uses the word 'confused'. There appears to be something going on with Sen Hagel's mental state, and it's not good. I have no wish to be mean to Sen Hagel, but someting is just not quite right there; sad.
Hagel belongs "down on the farm"...not in the US Senate. He is not even a disgrace...just an embarrassment. What were the people of Nebraska thinking when they elected this dolt?
Joseph R. Biden, Jr. United States Senator - Delaware
December 20, 2002
Op-Ed
OP-ED: Iraq: The Decade After
This op-ed originally appeared in THE WASHINGTON POST on December 20, 2002.
IRAQ: THE DECADE AFTER
By Joseph R. Biden and Chuck Hagel
The United States will face enormous challenges in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, as well as broad regional questions that must be addressed. These are both matters that members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have been focusing on for some time. During a week-long trip to the region, we came away with a better understanding of the possibilities and perils that lie ahead.
In northern Iraq we saw the extraordinary potential of Iraqis once they are out from under Saddam Hussein's murderous hand. New hospitals, schools, roads and lively media are testimony to the determination of Iraqi Kurds and to the bravery of coalition air crews patrolling the no-fly zone. Just a few hours' drive from the oppressive rule in Baghdad, a freely elected regional government and legislature (which we were honored to address) are embarked on a path of clear-eyed realism. While neighboring countries fear an independent Kurdistan, Kurdish leaders appear committed to working together for a united Iraq. They realize they could lose everything they have built in the past decade by pursuing independence.
Although no one doubts our forces will prevail over Saddam Hussein's, key regional leaders confirm what the Foreign Relations Committee emphasized in its Iraq hearings last summer: The most challenging phase will likely be the day after -- or, more accurately, the decade after -- Saddam Hussein.
Once he is gone, expectations are high that coalition forces will remain in large numbers to stabilize Iraq and support a civilian administration. That presence will be necessary for several years, given the vacuum there, which a divided Iraqi opposition will have trouble filling and which some new Iraqi military strongman must not fill. Various experts have testified that as many as 75,000 troops may be necessary, at a cost of up to $ 20 billion a year. That does not include the cost of the war itself, or the effort to rebuild Iraq.
Americans are largely unprepared for such an undertaking. President Bush must make clear to the American people the scale of the commitment.
The northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk is an example of the perils American forces may encounter. It sits atop valuable oil fields and is home to a mixed population of Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds. In recent years, Saddam Hussein has expelled Turkmen and Kurds as part of an "Arabization," or ethnic cleansing, campaign. We toured a refugee camp housing 120,000 displaced people and heard countless stories of brutality and the loss of loved ones. Kirkuk could become the Iraqi version of Mitrovica, the volatile city in Kosovo where the U.N.-led administration has faced the dilemma of forcibly resettling people from various ethnic communities who have been evicted from their homes.
This is one reason why we will need our allies to help rebuild Iraq. Cementing a broad coalition today will keep the pressure on Hussein to disarm, build legitimacy for the use of force if he refuses, reduce the risks to our troops and spread the burden of securing and reconstructing Iraq. Going it alone and imposing a U.S.-led military government instead of a multinational civilian administration could turn us from liberators into occupiers, fueling resentment throughout the Arab world.
Iraq cannot be viewed in a vacuum. Disarming and stabilizing that country will be all the more difficult because of the unsettled regional environment, in particular the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While it is essential that the United States aggressively pursue Israeli-Palestinian peace on its own merits, doing so has ancillary benefits for the disarmament of Iraq. Simply put, we will make it easier for Arab governments to participate in, or at least support, our actions in Iraq if they can show their people we are engaged in the peace process.
Meetings with Israeli officials and Palestinian reformers led us to believe new opportunities exist for American diplomacy. Recent polling shows that nearly three-quarters of Israelis and Palestinians seek reconciliation and a two-state solution. For the first time since the violence began, a majority of Palestinians support a crackdown against terrorism as part of a peace process. A large majority have no confidence in Yasser Arafat.
The key is to empower Palestinian reformers and encourage Arab moderates. President Bush should lose no time in publicly endorsing the "road map" developed by the Quartet -- an informal group of mediators on the Middle East from the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia. The road map provides for a series of reciprocal steps to jump-start a renewed peace process. That would give hope to Palestinian reformers and send a clear message to the Arab world that the United States remains determined to pursue an Israeli-Palestinian settlement even as we deal with Iraq.
Working on multiple fronts poses a difficult test for American leadership, but there is no escaping the fact that we face several related, interlocking crises in the region. As the bulwark of freedom and democracy, the United States faces the need to disarm Saddam Hussein and set the stage for a stable Iraq, win a protracted war on terrorism and engage fully on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Working with our friends and allies, it is a challenge we can, and must, meet.
###
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) is chairman and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
The Washington Post Home Page:
Dee-dee-dee
Chuck Hagel had no background in NE politics when he just showed up and mounted a successful senate campaign. He really represents some financial interests, maybe Soros, for all I know.
I would recommend to check out www.Recallhagel.com
Hopefully the relatives will push to have Pete Ricketts run against Hagel. A lot of Nebraskans voted for Hagel and then in the last election voted for Ben Nelson, the democrat. They pushed the idea that Ricketts who spent money only out of his own pocket was trying to buy the senate seat. According to them Nelson was a democrat who would vote like a republican (he doesn't really) and was better because most of his money came from outside of the state. Logic I could never understand. Vote for the guy bought by other's money from outside of the state instead of voting for the guy who was paying his own way. Here in Nebraska there are a lot of "republicans" who have some very stilted logic when it comes to voting for their senators.
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