The New York Times web site is reporting that Senator Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, will not run for re-election to the Senate, nor for the White House.
We’ve written about Senator Hagel here before, in general admiring his status as a rare Republican foreign policy maverick, a clear-thinker with the credentials, the experience, and most importantly, the nerve to stand up to the neconservative infiltration and takeover of the Republican Party.
Hagel was anti-war on Iraq, when being anti-Iraq war wasn’t cool…. in either party. As a decorated Vietnam veteran, Hagel early on warned of Vietnam ghosts in Iraq.
Yet Hagel has been a creature of the US Senate, and in that political role, he’s often bent with the wind, (such as on the habeas corpus for detainees issue) perhaps in hopes of living to fry bigger political fish. That earned him the back-handed compliment from one Nebraska blogger:
“He’s Chuck Hagel, folks – the thinking man’s unthinking Republican. And, you almost have to like him; you just can’t count on him.”
I think that’s too harsh, but I find myself disappointed that he apparently hasn’t found a viable way to run for national office next year.
So what’s behind Hagel’s decision not to run for anything next year – at least not at this time?
1. Was it his disgust with his own Republican Party? I’ve seen reports that neoconservatives were raising mountains of out-of-state cash for a nasty challenge to Hagel in the upcoming Republican primary.
2. Was it a sense that the Republican Party stands on the threshold of being crushed next year in the US Senate? That prospect, perhaps ironically, increases with Hagel withdrawing. If fellow veteran Bob Kerry indeed returns to Nebraska, the Democrats might well add Hagel’s seat to their Senate winnings next year. (They could also take John Warner’s seat here in Virginia, provided they can find another “maverick” like Jim Webb.)
3. If that indeed is his assessment, might Hagel be calculating that it’s more prudent for him to sit this slaughter out, and be available as the elder “realist” statesman to help with a Republican reconstruction by 2012?
4. Or is Hagel “thinking” yet again — that there might still be a chance for re-surfacing on a serious third party ticket for the White House next year? Perhaps Sam Waterston’s “Unity08” might yet persuade him. Or maybe New York’s Mayor Bloomberg might draft him — as David Broder recently suggested.
In my opinion, the Republican Party is in crisis mode, even as it refuses to admit it. It has strayed dangerously far from its own grand heritage as the Party of Lincoln, “TR,” “IKE,” and even “the Gipper.” Worse, it has abandoned all too many fundamental American values.
With most of the Republican Presidential candidates, including Fred Thompson, now running hawkishly to the right of Dick Cheney, Chuck Hagel could take a huge chunk of disaffected “Eisenhower Republicans” with him, wherever and whenever he goes. I sense many anti-war-party Democrats also admire and might support Hagel, should the Democratic candidates self-destruct in kow-towing to the neocon returnees into their ranks. Ah, wishful thinking?
Hagel’s formal announcement on Monday should be interesting. I’m counting on him not to go quietly.
As one quick footnote, in the now prescient Broder column from 10 days ago, Broder provided this curious Hagel quote:
“The only mistakes I’ve made,” he told me last week, “were when I tried to go against the tide.”
I have trouble believing that Hagel said that… Either that, or Broder isn’t telling us the context.
If anything, I like Hagel precisely when he has gone against the tide…. especially the neocon tide.
I’ve come across some draft Hagel web sites that are clinging to the hope that it’s yet another misdirection. Back in March, Hagel had annonced a press conference about his plans, but then announced that he’d wait til later to announce his plans…. I doubt he’d do that again…. (as is apparently also the reporting in Nebraska papers – the assumption is he’s “retiring” — at age 60??)
In reflecting on Hagel, I came across this interesting Newsweek story on Hagel the rebel — with “painful” accounts of his father and brother.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16841355/site/newsweek/page/0/
For a common footsolider from such humble roots, Hagle came a LOT further than yr standard upper crust Republican Brahmins…. (or those born with silver foots in their mouths)
Seems like a lot of wasted talent….
I would be more likely to vote for someone like Hagel for president than the likes of Hillary or Obama, both of whom are showing every sign that they intend to enthusiastically continue the imperial agenda. Maybe they would do so in a somewhat less brazen, in-your-face manner than the neocons have, but both have made it clear that they will leave enough troops behind in Iraq to populate those enormous bases, and to guard the city-state the U.S. has built in Baghdad. Worse yet, they have both proclaimed their intention to significantly enlarge the military. The only reason the U.S. could need a larger military than it has now is to invade, occupy, and set up a permanent military presence in even more unwilling countries.
I, for one, will not vote for either Obama, or Hillary, and would love an alternative choice of any party who actually has a chance.
Hagel makes semi-sane foreign policy pronouncements sometimes — but no Senator voted more with Bush in 2006. And what about this: “Hagel’s Planned Parenthood rating: 0%. Secular Coalition for America rating: 0%. Darfur Scoreboard grade: C. League of Conservation Voters rating: 14%. Human Rights Campaign (gay rights) rating: 0. The man supports a constitutional amendment to ban the burning of the flag.” Source.
He’s stinking rotten on most things that matter to our daily lives. I won’t miss him, though I doubt his replacement will be much better.
Not a million miles off-topic, I hope. This is for Consoli.
It is and excerpt from “Seeing through the fog of words”, by Brian Rostron, in the Sunday Independent, Johannesburg (subscription), 9 September 2007.
Rostron does not go as far as saying what he thinks a liberal is. But he says enough to demonstrate that there is a problem here, and in the USA.
‘A similar hijack of meaning and words has taken place in the US. In Talking Right, linguist Geoffrey Nunberg details how words are linked to a national narrative that can detach them entirely from their real sense. In the US, words such as “choice”, “freedom” and “values”, he says, are now firmly established in the public consciousness as being associated with the political right.
‘As opposed to South Africa, however, where the term “liberal” is often employed to imply “white reactionary”, in the US it has been distorted into the complete reverse.
‘There liberals are caricatured, writes Nunberg, as “tax-raising, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freaks”.
‘That words can so soon be associated with their opposite meaning becomes an indispensable tool in the vocabulary of the powerful. It stops thought. In the US, when Bush sneers “liberal”, his Republican supporters know they don’t need to engage in any further reasoning – that argument can be written off.
‘In South Africa, the very same word can be deployed to the totally contrary effect – to imply that the person thus labelled is probably thinking along the same lines as George Bush, if not involved in a plot with him.
‘We have an added irony. Some in positions of power, currently implementing a “neo-liberal” economic policy, increasingly deploy the insult “liberal” glibly to smear left-wing critics when they call for a more progressive pro-poor strategy.’
Jan in SanFran, you wrote:
“He’s stinking rotten on most things that matter to our daily lives.”
I didn’t mean to imply that Hagel wasn’t “conservative” — but as a Republican “conservative” (on economic & social issues perhaps), he nonetheless on foreign policy has been quite vocal, even during the Clinton years, in trying to find more constructive ways to reduce tensions in global hot-spots, especially with Iran. He’s also been quite “independent” of “the lobby” since he first came to Washington. Alas, as I also noted, too often in the past, he’s ended up “taking one” for the party (as in his ending votes to authorize the President to go into Iraq — which he regretted as he voted for it – or to the vote for that bill which removed habeas corpus – even as he explicitly condemned that provision)
As for your quip about he’s rotten on what matters to our lives, perhaps your life is rather “different” than mine. Perhaps you don’t know anyone, or have anyone in your family who’s now in Iraq or facing the prospect of being sent there. Ok, Do you know anyone who’s paying higher taxes to support this endless GWOT (the one now being made dramatically more difficult as we tick off friend and potential friend.? Know anyone who’s paying energy bills that are twice as high as they would be if we weren’t tied down in Iraq (and sabre rattling w/ Iran)?
Know anyone who might be drafted if Cheney & Bolton get their nefarious ways and start a hot war with Iran? (or if Obama recklessly started a war with Pakistan?)
Maybe I’m at odd ball in thinking that foreign policy right now is the top issue for 2008…. perhaps not.
BTW, I’m with Shirin in being uncomfortable with the lead candidates in both parties. (I’m more impressed with Edwards of late…. and Bill Richardson — and Ron Paul.)
Anybody have a feel for Bloomberg on foreign policy?
I think Scott that your reply to janinsanfran, while correct, is overly emotional in playing the “relative in camouflage card” (yes, I do, I am sorry to say.)
The war is the cardinal issue, upon which all others depend if, as I do, you regard it as part of a strategy to drag the “western” (old NATO and most Warsaw pact) nations into an increasingly vicious war with an increasingly racial/cultural complexion. With every passing day the probability of more blows against civilians in Europe and America increases. We know that any such attacks will be used as alibis not only for increased violence overseas but also for repression here and in peripheral areas like latin America and Africa.
The imperial system is reaching a point at which force alone will preserve it: the underlying mechanics, the market, petrodollars, the central banks now function only in fits and starts. The mask is slipping and the death’s head of coercion and terror becomes apparent even to the ordinary citizen. The old mythology, of economic growth yielding increasingly tasty pies and mass access to education assuring exchanges between classes and races, ceases to reassure, let alone convince.
All that matters is war- war to collect debts, war to set raw material prices, war to bleed of rebellion in the metropolis, war to create markets for weapons, war to devour surpluses for welfare, war to prevent understanding and short circuit trends towards solidarity.
Stop the war and all else becomes possible. So long as the war goes on it will spread and grow and votes on gay marriage, flag burning and other “values” issues will seem picayune details besides the central question.
I have been googling info about Hagel and his extremely likely retirement for the last couple of days, and yours is one of the most thought provoking comments I stumbled upon. I too am wondering what the real cause(s) of his decision may be. I hope he will be true to himself and that his press conference tomorrow will indeed be interesting. It would be truly sad if he ends up saying he wants to spend time with his family, sad because there was true fire in this man, and I hope it is still there. I also hope, sheer personal curiosity, that he will say something about his future plans. If he decides to just give it up at 60, what a waste! And what an example of the system chewing up some of its best and allowing the useless pygmies to run the show.
About the “not going against the wave” comment in the Broder recent article: I don’t think that Hagel meant to say that he made mistakes when he went against the crowd. I think he meant “tide” more generally, a sense of where things are moving on a larger scale, being able to sense the trends before they become obvious. Difficult to put into words exactly how I interpreted that, you cannot fully explain a metaphor. But this would be consistent with what I heard him say at least once probably more, about major changes being in the making in the political landscape and in the world at large, changes that are not fully under anybody’s control.
You don’t know how much I’d like to agree with you about Hagel, Mr Harrop. But Hagel’s “independence” is a little like ordering a diet coke at an all-you-can-eat buffet and chowing down until you’ve consumed at least 5,000 calories.
Hagel voted for the Iraq war in 2002(unlike Lincoln Chafee, the only senate republican to oppose it), and has always voted for re-authorization, even if he’s made a point to go on a Sunday talk show or two to wring his hands and scold his party a few days before lining up with the majority for the actual vote.
He did the same thing in 2006 with the Military Commissions Act; he made some noise about why it was a bad bill in TV appearances, then voted for it. He always folds come crunch time.
I see smoke but no fire. What’s the difference between a well-meaning phoney and a phoney? An adjective?
Hi Jonathan. Good points — and your observation (and others here) may suggest, perhaps ironically, that Hagel, as currently packaged, might have ended up sounding like another John Kerry. (e.g., well, I really was “personally” against the war on principle (or against revoking habeas corpus), but I voted for the war anyway because, you see, I assumed we’d get a chance to revise it, etc., etc.)
And thus, as the blogger said, Hagel’s been the guy may of us want to like, but you’re just not sure you can count on him.
Yet maybe if Hagel at last strikes out “on his own”, he’ll have a chance to continue building/renewing his credibility.
I even saw one web site pining away at the prospect that he could end up serving in a Democratic Administration (say, as Sec. of Defense – or better yet, as Sec. of State) Stranger things have happened.
Perhaps my relative positive disposition towards him (despite the disappointments) might be in having regularly read his speaches for the past 11 years…. (we’re on his fax mailer) There’s real substance to Hagel — on foreign affairs…. His spontaneous “outbursts” of candor on the Senate Foreign Relations committee will be sorely missed….