With glee, the Associated Press reports a story with this blaring headline:
Commence the wringing of hands.
Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, who received two Purple Hearts and other military honors for his service in Vietnam, reiterated his position that the United States needs to develop a strategy to leave Iraq.
Hagel scoffed at the idea that U.S. troops could be in Iraq four years from now at levels above 100,000, a contingency for which the Pentagon is preparing.
“We should start figuring out how we get out of there,” Hagel said on “This Week” on ABC. “But with this understanding, we cannot leave a vacuum that further destabilizes the Middle East. I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur.”
I’m not surprised at all by Hagel’s remarks. Later down in the same story the AP quotes Sen. George Allen, R-Va. Again, no shock here. These guys are left of center. It’s a stretch to consider them Republicans.
It’s hard to know what their agenda is, but whenever the MSM wants to put an anti-Bush message out there, and they realize that picking the same Democrats isn’t effective, they go running to guys like this. Hagel and his kind are all too eager to put their face on Sunday TV to “represent” the GOP.
Sigh.
MORE: See it for yourself.