{"id":5009,"date":"2005-08-19T09:47:08","date_gmt":"2005-08-19T13:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5009"},"modified":"2005-08-19T09:47:08","modified_gmt":"2005-08-19T13:47:08","slug":"when-hagel-said-war-is-bigger-than-politics-he-wasnt-kidding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/when-hagel-said-war-is-bigger-than-politics-he-wasnt-kidding\/","title":{"rendered":"When Hagel said ‘war is bigger than politics,’ he wasn’t kidding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just a month ago, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) chatted<\/a> with the New York Times Sunday Magazine, shortly after telling U.S. News<\/a> that the White House’s policies in Iraq are “completely disconnected from reality.” He added, “The reality is that we’re losing in Iraq.”<\/p>\n

The NYT gave Hagel a chance to reverse course, but he stood his ground. “If someone says I am a disloyal Republican because I am not supporting my party, let them say it,” Hagel said<\/a>. “War is bigger than politics.”<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Hagel solidified his role<\/a> as the only Republican I can think of who’s making sense when it comes to Iraq.<\/p>\n

Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, acknowledged the U.S. military presence was becoming harder and harder to justify. He believes Iraq faces a serious danger of civil war that would threaten Middle East stability, and said there is little Washington can do to avert this.<\/p>\n

“We are seen as occupiers, we are targets. We have got to get out. I don’t think we can sustain our current policy, nor do I think we should,” he said at one stop.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That was at a local Nebraska event in which Hagel was speaking to a constituent. Would he say the same thing to a national television audience<\/a>? Yes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska on Thursday said the United States is “getting more and more bogged down” in Iraq and stood by his comments that the White House is disconnected from reality and losing the war.<\/p>\n

The longer U.S. forces remain in Iraq, he said, the more it begins to resemble the Vietnam war.<\/p>\n

Hagel mocked Vice President Dick Cheney’s assertion in June that the insurgency in Iraq was in its “last throes,” saying the U.S. death toll has risen amid insurgent attacks.<\/p>\n

“Maybe the vice president can explain the increase in casualties we’re taking,” the Nebraskan told CNN. “If that’s winning, then he’s got a different definition of winning than I do.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sounds to me like Hagel’s position — our current policy is untenable, we have to get out, Cheney’s insane — should be the Dems’ position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just a month ago, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) chatted with the New York Times Sunday Magazine, shortly after telling U.S. News that the White House’s policies in Iraq are “completely disconnected from reality.” He added, “The reality is that we’re losing in Iraq.” The NYT gave Hagel a chance to reverse course, but he stood […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}