{"id":6943,"date":"2006-03-24T10:56:26","date_gmt":"2006-03-24T15:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6943"},"modified":"2006-03-24T10:56:26","modified_gmt":"2006-03-24T15:56:26","slug":"hagel-positioned-as-the-anti-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/hagel-positioned-as-the-anti-bush\/","title":{"rendered":"Hagel positioned as the anti-Bush"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Bush’s comments were particularly well received by those who disagree with his handling of the war, but for me, one critic stood out<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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<\/a> and said he believes Iraq is in the midst of a “low-grade civil war.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

John McCain was<\/i> 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<\/a> in his criticisms of the White House.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/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-6943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6943","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=6943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6943\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}