Hagel is shrill.
[Video has disappeared.]
You can read the transcript at TPM Muckraker.
Bill Brubaker, Debbi Wilgoren and Howard Schneider write for the Washington Post:
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee today passed a nonbinding resolution opposing a troop surge in Iraq, rebuffing the key element of President Bush’s new strategy to end the 46-month-old war, which has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 U.S. service members.
The 12-9 vote came after committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) urged his colleagues to approve the bipartisan measure, calling it “an attempt to save the president from making a significant mistake.”
Yeah, I know, it’s nonbinding.
Hagel was the only Republican to vote for the measure.
You think Dems are timid? Suddenly the Republicans are even wussier. They don’t like the war, they say, but a nonbinding resolution against it is going too far.
The ranking Republican on the committee, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), urged committee members to oppose the resolution drafted by Biden and Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine). …
… In debate this morning, Lugar warned that passage would be “the legislative equivalent of a sound bite,” would allow Congress to wash its hands of responsibility for the war and would weaken America’s standing in the eyes of foreign observers.
“We don’t need a resolution to confirm that there is broad discomfort” with the war, Lugar said. “If Congress is going to provide constructive oversight, they must get involved in the weeds” of the policy.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) also opposed the resolution because, he said, it would not be binding on Bush and “will have absolutely zero affect on the administration.” But Corker said he was “not persuaded” the troop surge is “the right thing to do.”
Wusses, I say. They can’t even stand up to put the White House on notice that the Senate disagrees. Does Senator Lugar think the White House is going to invite him over to “get involved in the weeds”?
I didn’t find Hagel shrill at all. I was bowled over by his honesty and found it refreshing to see a US Senator really speak his mind.
Thanks for the video clip, Maha. Best statement by Hagel: our troops are not means, they are real lives. Best point by Hagel: there is no plan.
I agree with Donnah’s comment. The adjective ‘shrill’ doesn’t apply to Hagel. Hagel does seems to have reached a point of ‘ain’t gonna take it anymore’. He threw rhetoric and politics to the wind and just spoke from his personal convictions. More than anything else, Hagel seemed to become that rare member of a dysfunctional family willing to bust the bubble projected to the public.
I was amazed and thrilled by Chuck’s outrage. It certainly got a lot of play in the MSM. When I heard about his committee vote yesterday afternoon, I sent an email to his office to thank him. Nebraskans for Peace also delivered a petition to his Lincoln, Nebraska, office to thank him for his stance on the war.
Having said that, I still disagree with Chuck on everything else. But he’s kicking W’s butt on the war.
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You can’t mean to tell me Snowe didn’t vote for a resolution she co-sponsored and helped to draft? That can’t be true, can it?
mick — Snowe isn’t on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.