Good riddance to Hagel, cont.

Spencer Warren writes:

This retirement confirms the label of “butterfly” that some insightful people apply to Hagel, and confirms my view of Hagel as a poseur, as I wrote at VFR without attribution in the past. Last year he was toying with a presidential run, then he made an announcement that he’d be making an annoucement, then the announcement was that he probably wasn’t running, then he retires from the Senate altogether. He walks away just as the Iraq War, in which he has taken such an ostentatious, if typically ineffective, interest, may be reaching a turning point. He also has made many statements professing deep concern, as a Vietnam War veteran, for the plight of our troops in Iraq.

According to the LA Times article:

“On the Republican side, Hagel had drawn a serious primary opponent in Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning.”

Although Hagel won with about 80 percent of the vote in 2002 and probably has a huge fund-raising advantage, there is a good chance he decided not to run because his strong support for the Kennedy-Bush-McCain Abolish America immigration bill may be hurting his poll numbers, perhaps along with his statements on the Iraq War.

Hagel also favored the forced repatriation of little Elian Gonzalez (done at gunpoint) to Castro’s Cuba in 2000.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 12, 2007 06:04 PM | Send