Hagel positioned as the anti-Bush

March 24, 2006

This week, for the first time, the president subtly acknowledged that U.S. troops would be in Iraq through the end of his presidency, and decisions about troop withdrawals “will be decided by future Presidents.”

Bush’s comments were particularly well received by those who disagree with his handling of the war, but for me, one critic stood out.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel told a New Hampshire radio audience Wednesday that he is concerned about President Bush’s statement that the next president will decide when to bring all U.S. troops home from Iraq.

“I think it is very uncertain as to what the world looks like in 2009,” Hagel said when Laura Knoy, host of the public radio program “The Exchange,” raised the issue.

“I was a little puzzled to see the president jump out that far to make that kind of a comment,” he said. “I’m not sure that helps settle Americans’ concerns, or settles them down in their lack of confidence in what they have been told about Iraq.”

And in an interesting little twist, Hagel said this while in New Hampshire, where he spent three days this week testing the presidential waters. And it comes just a few days after Hagel contradicted Bush and said he believes Iraq is in the midst of a “low-grade civil war.”

As a strategy for a presidential campaign, I wonder if Hagel has found an empty niche: the Republican anti-Bush. There are at least 10 top-tier contenders for the ’08 nomination, and they’re all carefully choosing areas of subtle disagreement with the president while generally maintaining party loyalty. They assume, probably correctly, that far-right primary voters still consider Bush the greatest president ever, and see little utility in bashing Bush publicly.

John McCain was the anti-Bush candidate, before he decided that the path to the nomination ran through Bush Land. It left an opening for Hagel, who hasn’t been shy in his criticisms of the White House.

As strategies go, it’s not entirely without merit. If Bush’s popularity continues to plummet, and the GOP base grows increasingly annoyed, maybe Hagel could say, “I was an anti-Bush conservative before being an anti-Bush conservative was cool.” Maybe.

With due respect to Sen. Hagel, Shruby said “future President’s”, not “the next President”. It’s going to be a long war.

Shruby’s answer seems quite convenient and a good way to start the process of getting people off his back to come up with timetable’s and plans for Victory. What a relief it must be for his tired little brain to be able to start saying, it’s somebody elses monkey.

He got the ball rolling in the WOT. We can’t expect him to do any more.

  • What I still can’t figure out is why a Republican would want to be president at all at this point. If anything, now would be the time to get out of the American investment.

    The infrastructure of our country is either in decay, overstressed, or destroyed. It’s now a matter of physics. Whoever the president is going forward will be like Tsar Nicholas II–pulling madly on the reins of the horse, trying to get it to do something, as the horse is falling from a 1,000 foot height. That’s not the kind of position I’d want for myself. And look what happened to old Niki.

  • I was getting interested in Hagel for a while based on his seemingly independent stances on Iraq, but I fell off the wagon when he continued to vote the party line in defiance of his public statements. His tactic of positioning himself as the ‘anti-Bush’ may be effective but if it’s just another cynical ploy to advance his career then it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

    As my old Irish grandmother used to say, “Talk is cheap but it takes money to buy whiskey.” Until Hagel’s actual voting record starts to match more closely his public rhetoric, I’m going to keep him at arm’s length for a while yet.

  • As my old Irish grandmother used to say, “Talk is cheap but it takes money to buy whiskey.”

    Your grandmother was one wise person. You won’t mind if I use this saying, will you?

    As for Hagel, curmudgeon is right on. You can’t be the anti-Bush unless you actually vote against his policies.

  • Curmudgeon and ChicagoBlue are correct. Hagel would have a lot more integrity if he weren’t trying so hard to give Bush a pass on the NSA wiretapping.

    And Mr. Flibble makes another good point. Whoever the next President is, they’re going to have to start cleaning up the enormous mess Bush will have left behind. After the new person has been in office awhile, the mess will cease to appear being Bush’s, and will become his/hers.

    It’s almost as if the Dems should take back both houses of Congress while a “moderate” Repub like Chuck Hagel should win the Presidency, with the Dems then holding Hagel’s feet to the fire and Hagel taking the hit for Bush’s mess.

  • I’m still looking for someone, anyone, who will
    talk about the real problems facing the world
    and the nation. Not the phony stuff like terrorism.
    Global warming and peak oil threaten the entire
    world with catastrophe. Runaway capitalism,
    free, global markets, global economic Darwinism,
    whatever you want to call it, will destroy the middle
    class and our standard of living if nothing is done.
    You have billions of people who will gladly do the
    work that Americans do for far lower wages, and
    they’ll get all those jobs in time, unless we take
    huge pay cuts ourselves.

    And nobody is even talking seriously about these
    apocalyptic issues, much less doing anything
    about them. It’s so bad that if you do talk about
    them, you’re dismissed as a crackpot.

    Off topic? Not really, when we’re talking about
    our national leadership in 2006 and 2008.

  • Hark,
    My point exactly–the only question I have at this point is whether they aren’t doing anything to mitigate the catastrophe because they either won’t or because they can’t. I’m leaning toward “can’t” right now. Our government, for all its purported strength, is a paper tiger growing weaker even faster as it goes into debt spending on useless shit and lets everything decay from neglect.

  • The political class in control (demos and repubs) just want today to be like yesterday.

    They survived yesterday, after all.

    They will extract whatever wealth they can, barricade themselves for protection and watch the rest of us commonfolk slit each other’s throats for a moldy, measly morsel.

    They are vampires leeching off the lifeblood and labor of the rest of us.

    I am half a century old and I fear for the future my children (and yours) will face. We had our chance, our time in the sun. Now we are driven into the basement, the dank, dark depths.

    I thought we as a nation had some shit figured out – like no good can come from unprovoked war, we really need to follow our laws, separation of powers in goivernment is a good thing, we realy want a free and independent press. Who knew all of this is so ‘pre 9/11’?

  • ChicagoBlue,
    You might have something. There was some questions concerning Hagel and his business relation with Diebold. I can’t remember exactly what, as it was a small blurb in the Omaha World Herald a while back, but I’m sure if you googled it, you can find something.
    I like what he says about Iraq, but after he backted away on the FISA issue, I take everything he says with a boulder of salt.

  • I’d love to see Senator Hagel run for President in 2008. He would be able to attract a lot of moderates in a general election with his alternative to Bush (on Iraq and deficit spending) but I think that he will not fare well in a primary election. Lots of Republicans are mad at him for criticizing the President.

  • I agree: Hagel will get his ass handed to him in the primaries.

    The Repug establishment will fuck him in 2008 the same way the Democratic establishment fucked Dean in 2004.

    You really think anyone with any power in the Repug party (or the Democratic party, either) will allow an anti-war candidate to make it through to the nomination!??! Please, don’t make my shoes laugh.

    Our best hope is to “crash the gates” in the Democratic party, and take it over. That’s a very long-shot goal, and there’s lots of good debate about how to do it, and how long it’ll take, if it’s even possible.

    But the idea of an anti-war faction taking over the Repug party is so ridiculous it bears no further discussion.

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