There are a few Republican lawmakers whom I feel like I can respect, despite policy disagreements. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) is one of them. In a sense, he’s the McCain that John McCain pretends to be but isn’t — Hagel is a decorated veteran who isn’t afraid to criticize his party or his party’s president. He’s a bit more sensible, and a bit more honest, than nearly all of his GOP colleagues, especially on Iraq.
But I’m afraid the WaPo’s David Ignatius pushes this tack too far today,
Hagel was also early to understand the importance of talking to Iran, another idea that has since become commonplace but at the time took political guts. In a July 10, 2003, speech on the Senate floor, he said that a direct U.S. dialogue with Tehran about the nuclear issue might be necessary. In a Nov. 15, 2005, speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, he was emphatic: “The fact that our two governments cannot — or will not — sit down to exchange views must end.”
Such outspoken criticisms of Bush policies had put Hagel outside the respectable Republican perimeter — until Election Day. Hagel delivered his own blunt postmortem in a Nov. 16 speech to a conservative political action committee, GOPAC. The message of the election, he said, “is the American people saying you failed.” Republicans had become so focused on keeping power that “we came loose of our moorings.”
Hagel went on to criticize his party’s failings in language you rarely hear in the usual pre-masticated sound bites of today’s politicians. On GOP ethics lapses: “When you blow past the ethical standards and you play on the edge of legality, you’re in trouble.” On Bush administration foreign policy: “You cannot have a foreign policy based on divine mission. We tried that in the Middle Ages, that’s what the Crusades were about.”
All of this leads Ignatius to suggest Hagel, who’s weighing a presidential bid, is the right man to lead. “American politics turned a corner this month and that we are in new territory,” Ignatius said, implying that the electorate’s desire for change could sweep Hagel into the White House.
Ignatius left a few pertinent details out.
Most notably, Hagel may be more honest than the typical Senate Republican, but he’s no moderate. Ezra explained this well a couple of months ago.
Hagel’s a charismatic guy who gives great speech, is breaking with the GOP, criticizing his own party, and calling for withdrawal from Iraq. All that has the possibility to make him this election’s McCain — the Republican Democrats could tolerate. But he really, really isn’t. Like many critics of the modern GOP, his rhetoric is broadly similar to the opportunistic attacks Democrats have adopted (as when we accuse the right of contravening their small government principles), but the substance of his accusations is that the modern GOP is not conservative enough and they need to spend more time slashing Medicare and eating orphans and so on.
For that matter, Hagel is great at talking, but far less impressive when it comes to following through. In just the last few months, Hagel has said that the Republican Party has “lost its way,” that the president probably “overstepped his bounds” by initiating a warrantless-search program, he’s opposed to increasing troop levels in Iraq, and long before the media figured it out, said Iraq is already in the midst of a “very defined civil war,” positions that are at odds with his GOP allies, including McCain. As Arianna put it, “It’s almost as if McCain has abandoned the Straight Talk Express on the side of the road and Hagel has hopped into the driver’s seat.”
But back in the Senate, away from the cameras, Hagel didn’t actually do anything. He’d say all the right things on television, impressive everyone with his candor and insights, and then go right back to work as a conservative Republican who votes with his party on everything of any significance. He can’t be a great president if he’s a shallow senator.
As Matt Yglesias put it:
Chuck Hagel continues to prove he can be an impressive thinker and analyst when he chooses to. The question continues to be: Can he be an impressive United States Senator? As a member of the majority, he never seemed to find ways to use the power of his office effectively to reorient national policy. As a member of the minority, can and will he find ways to forge coalitions with liberal Democrats to push the kind of foreign policy he’s interested in?
Now that would be impressive. Until then, Hagel can talk the talk, but seems entirely unwilling to walk the walk.