shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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 Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:41 am Post subject: A Liberal in Republican's Clothing |
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What happens to some of these guys when they come to Washington?
A few years ago, I thought Hagel was a good guy. Now he rivals McCain for top RINO!!
| Quote: | A Liberal in Republican's Clothing
Geoff Elliott, Washington correspondent
June 27, 2005
CHUCK Hagel has that American sheen of success. Good looks, buckets of charisma - he's made for the presidency.
Yet things don't quite fit. Hagel's a Republican senator but is an outspoken critic of the Iraq war and is less than convinced about President George W.Bush's rosy outlook for the US economy. And he really stepped up the heat in recent days.
"Things aren't getting better, they're getting worse," Hagel said of the Iraq war. "The White House is completely disconnected with reality. It's like they're making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."
This month Hagel drew criticism from conservatives for suggesting that the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, where Adelaide man David Hicks is being held, could be closed, saying the Cuban prison was a reason the US was "losing the image war around the world".
Hagel is often tagged a maverick in the party, like John McCain, his good friend and neighbour in the expansive marble and mahogany Russell Senate building on Capitol Hill.
Both senators are decorated Vietnam veterans and are clearly worried about possible historical parallels with Vietnam and what is happening in Iraq now. McCain says Iraq is going to be "a long hard slog ... it's going to be at least a couple more years".
Hagel and McCain are dubbed disparagingly by the conservative rump as RINOs - Republicans in name only - for a perceived liberalism in their world outlook and their willingness to attack the President.
McCain ran against Bush in the 2000 primaries in a bitter and ill-tempered contest and is set to try his hand again in 2008. Hagel, too, has not ruled out a tilt next time around.
People in politics want to "influence the course and direction of our country ... and the world", Hagel said just after the election in November in front of a group of school students. Asked if he wanted to run for president, he said: "The president of the United States is the most powerful person in the world. I think most of us in this business ... do think occasionally about running for president."
Hagel, 58, is telegenic and engaging company. That, along with the fact that he offers something of a counterpoint to the spin on events from the White House, has made him a favourite on the TV circuit.
To the liberals, he is a voice of reason and moderation from within the Republican Party; to the conservatives he's not just a RINO, but is further dismissed as "McCain light". It's a reference to McCain's more dramatic Vietnam narrative: imprisoned and subject to torture over five years and the subject of a newly released film, Faith of My Fathers, based on McCain's book of the same name.
In last year's presidential race between Bush and John Kerry, Hagel even defended Kerry's Vietnam record when it was subject to attack in an advertising campaign from other former veterans.
It was then that Hagel offered this bipartisan analysis, inconceivable in an Australian election: "I like him. He's smart, he's tough, he's capable. I don't agree with him on a lot of things (though) I am closer to him on foreign policy questions ... He's certainly qualified to be president." Comments like that led to speculation in the Democrat party that, if Kerry won, Hagel might be tempted to switch sides, lured by a promise of the foreign or defence secretariats.
Hagel's attacks on the White House mirror the pressures the Democrats are starting to exert. There's political opportunism at play, since the sharper rhetoric comes as opinion polls indicate a possible tipping point in the public's perception of the war.
In the past week, a Gallup poll found that 56 per cent of people said it was not worth going to war. That's the lowest level of support since the invasion in 2003. And disapproval rates for Bush's conduct of the war have hit new highs. A survey from the Pew Group found that, for the first time, more than half the US population thinks the war has not contributed to American security.
The bad poll numbers come after a bloody few weeks of insurgency in Iraq that have claimed hundreds of Iraqi lives and more than 120 US soldiers.
Meanwhile, Hagel frets about the future of the US economy. He says that with the American military stationed in 130 nations, "we are more committed around the world than any time since World War II. It's a huge drain on (the) economy and huge drain on our budget".
And this during a time when there is a "such a dramatic shift in the world economy today". "You are finding more nations now with more opportunities to compete and they are more competitive than ever before, and this is putting some pressure on some specific industries in the US," Hagel said.
This is a reason, he says, why the protectionist streak is finding more voice in Congress of late - and Hagel feels Australia would find it tougher going if it were to try to negotiate a free trade agreement now.
"I think there would be more questions asked," he said. "I think the intensity of those questions would be stronger and the climate is less conducive to these trade agreements than previously.
"But I think ultimately, however, if the Australian trade agreement was brought up this year or next year it would have passed, if not for any other reason that Australia has been a close ally and friend of the US for many years and that does count in these agreements."
But protectionist talk in the US is just one of the issues that worries Hagel, at a time when the US is running a massive budget deficit and not, he says, investing enough in education and training - again, sounding more like a Democrat than a Republican.
In a recent speech to the National Press Club in Washington, Hagel said the partisan nature of politics in Washington was wrecking the political system.
"The race to win the 24-hour news cycle, to destroy the other party and win at any cost, has squeezed out our ability to see beyond the immediate to the larger, historically defining challenges of our time," the senator said. "We have allowed government policies and our democracy to become too often captive to marginalised politics, paralysing the very system that has helped America prosper and meet the challenges of our time. Political leaders must stop this zero-sum game of political destruction."
He asked: "Who lobbies for the general good of America? Who is looking over the horizon and seeing large economic storm-clouds gathering? Is our purpose in Washington to win or to govern? Governing requires making tough choices, looking at the big picture and developing a consensus of purpose."
Hagel is an outside chance for a run at the next presidency but events may conspire to elevate his voice even more in the political sphere, as they have done in the past few weeks.
"I happen to believe that, by 2008, this country is going to be ready for some people to talk very clearly, plainly - not frighten them, not demagogue them, but say it straight, say it honest," Hagel told The Washington Post last year.
Or, as the conservative internet blog site willisms.com puts it: "Like so many Democrats over the past few years, for Hagel, bad news for the country is good news for his career." |
www.theaustralian.news.com
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“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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