Is it me or has Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) been unusually good lately?<\/p>\n
While Joe Lieberman was dismissing<\/a> the charges brought against the White House by Richard Clarke, Hagel had the good sense (and non-partisan courage) to state the obvious<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That’s great, but it’s just the tip of the Hagel iceberg.<\/p>\n While the Bush campaign has been condemning John Kerry with baseless and dishonest charges about his commitment to national defense, Hagel has defended Kerry<\/a> and criticized the president’s campaign for making the bogus charge.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 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?<\/p>\n In fact, this has been going on for a while now. Last fall, Hagel lamented<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n A few weeks before that, in expressing his concern about the Plame Game scandal, Hagel told<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n
\nWhen 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<\/a> — Hagel accused<\/a> the White House of “gross incompetency.”<\/p>\n