Is it me or has Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) been unusually good lately?
While Joe Lieberman was dismissing the charges brought against the White House by Richard Clarke, Hagel had the good sense (and non-partisan courage) to state the obvious.
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said he believes the White House has to respond directly to Clarke’s allegations rather than question his credibility. “This is a serious book written by a serious professional who’s made serious charges, and the White House must respond to these charges,” he said.
That’s great, but it’s just the tip of the Hagel iceberg.
While the Bush campaign has been condemning John Kerry with baseless and dishonest charges about his commitment to national defense, Hagel has defended Kerry and criticized the president’s campaign for making the bogus charge.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Hagel said: “The facts just don’t measure [up to] the rhetoric.” He said it is unfair to isolate one or two votes over a 19-year career to make such a sweeping assessment of Kerry. “You can … take any of us, and pick out the different votes, and then try to manufacture something around it,” he said.
When Bush was poised to nominate Anthony Raimondo to be the assistant secretary of commerce for manufacturing and services — despite his difficulties with outsourcing to China — Hagel accused the White House of “gross incompetency.”
Oh, and did I mention that Hagel was one of only a handful of GOP senators to announce last month that he opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution?
In fact, this has been going on for a while now. Last fall, Hagel lamented the way in which Congress had ceded foreign policy responsibility to Bush, and criticized Bush’s failure to capitalize on his influence around the world.
A few weeks before that, in expressing his concern about the Plame Game scandal, Hagel told a national television audience that he believes Bush should be “sitting down with [Cheney] and asking what he knows” about his staff’s possible involvement in leaking the identity of an undercover CIA agent.
And way back last April, Hagel was leading the way in Congress in criticizing the administration’s handling of Afghanistan, saying the White House’s commitment to the country “does not come near” what is necessary.
Sure, Hagel is a staunch conservative, and I disagree him with him on most of the major political issues of the day. That said, Hagel has certainly earned his reputation as a “maverick” lately.