Smartest Republican of the Day: Chuck Hagel

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've always liked Chuck Hagel -- at least as much as I can like any Republican. Consider his typically sober assessments of the Iraq War, for example, and his disdain for ideological extremism, the currency of today's GOP.

Here's some of what I wrote about him back in September 2007 after he announced he wouldn't be running for president:

Of course, Hagel no doubt saw the writing on the wall. There is simply no future for him in Republican presidential politics -- not now, perhaps not in his lifetime. He could have held on to his safe Senate seat -- an alluring proposition, one imagines -- but for what, to what end? Just to be there, just to be a senator? And as a Republican, for a party that seems to have no room for someone like him in its increasingly narrow and fundamentalist tent? To be sure, Hagel is a solid conservative Republican on many issues that matter to Republicans -- on taxes, for example, but also on social conservative "values" issues that mean so much to the Republican base. But on Iraq, on the issue that has so divided Republicans, and the country, he want his own way, a realist, refusing to follow the president and the warmongers and the madmen in his party, so much of his party, further into what he knew, like so many others, to be a quagmire, a worsening one, one from which there would be no easy remove, one that was proving to be ever more catastrophic, both in and of itself and for his party and his country.

On Iraq, he proved to be a maverick, a critic, an independent-minded Republican -- and Republicans dislike such rebels, not to mention independent thought, particularly so now, in a time of war, of trumped-up war, endless war. You're either with them or against them, to rephrase Bush, and he was against them, forcefully so, and with integrity, credibility.

And where did that get him? He was basically excommunicated, dismissed by a party, his party, that was become ever more extreme.

Well, he's still not pulling any punches, and one of his targets continues to be the Republican Party:

Former GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel (NE) can't muster any praise for his Republican colleagues' behavior in Congress over the past few months. In an interview with the Financial Times, Hagel blasted GOP leadership for their "irresponsible actions" during the debt ceiling debacle, noting that "I think about some of the presidents we've had on my side of the aisle -- Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr., go right through them, Eisenhower -- they would be stunned."

"Disgusted" with the debt ceiling negotiations, Hagel called it "an astounding lack of responsible leadership by many in the Republican party, and I say that as a Republican." "Does anyone not believe what's happened here the last couple weeks in the market was not a complete, direct result of the lack of confidence that came out of that folly, that embarrassment?" he asked...

Asked about Tea Party influence, Hagel said the Republican party is too captive to a movement that is "very ideological" and "very narrow." "I've never seen so much intolerance as I've seen today," he said. Later surveying the GOP 2012 field, Hagel said the party may need to rebuild, agreeing that Republicans are now "too far to the right."

So far, in fact, that even Reagan wouldn't be deemed conservative enough, extreme enough, and the White Bolsheviks who control the party would probably try to push him aside were it not for his reputation, just as they have tried to purge so many from their ranks, often successfully.

Maybe it's a good thing Hagel retired from the Senate. Otherwise he'd be viciously attacked for saying this, and for his various "incorrect," "heretical" positions generally. The attacks may still come, to the extent anyone on the right is still paying attention to him, but at least they can't take his seat from him.

Chuck Hagel may still call himself a Republican, but the Republican Party these days has no use for the likes of Chuck Hagel. He's just too sensible and thoughtful a man.