Chuck Hagel Is An Ass

There's an old saying: don't imitate a moose mating call if you don't want Bullwinkel's intimate companionship. Just ask Rocky.

For reasons I can only ascribe to a sheer idiocy I pray I never contract, Senator Chuck Hagel (RINO-NE) appears never to have learned that lesson - until, one likes to hope, now.

Let's review, shall we?

Last week, the Nebraska senator made headlines when he criticized the Administration’s Iraq policy saying, “The White House is completely disconnected from reality... It's like they're just making it up as they go along.” Hagel also warned that Iraq was on the verge of becoming another Vietnam.

But for the sobriety and cornbelt buzzsaw accent, you'd have sworn that was Uncle Teddy going off on another brandy bender. You'd also think that "maverick" wannabes would learn that you can't out-McCain McCain - who, as it happens, is still backing the Bush Administration on the war.

But the Left doesn't care which RINO turns heel - they'll still use his wayward words anyway.

While Hagel’s comments faded from media attention, MoveOn went into action. The same day as this week’s speech by President Bush on Iraq the MoveOn PAC began a new advertising campaign calling for a withdrawal of U.S. forces. They took Hagel’s words and placed them alongside claims that President Bush, “is trying to change the subject from Iraq to terrorism and September 11-implying that Iraq attacked us in 2001.”

On Wednesday, MoveOn sent out a fundraising letter to supporters asking for $500,000 dollars to “expand the advertising into the hometowns of Republican members of Congress who will have tough elections in 2006. That will help send a signal that Congress will pay a price at the ballot box because of the Iraq failures.” The letter explains that 84% of MoveOn’s 3.3 million registered members support a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

The ad itself is titled “Hagel” and reads in part: “It’s time to come home. We went in the wrong way, let’s come home the right way.”

Anybody who is surprised by moveon's opportunism, stand on your head.

Senator Hagel would be advised to refrain from this activity, though, since it might drain all the blood out of his brain:

Hagel’s office was not pleased when they received word of the new ad. Hagel claims MoveOn used his words out of context and asked for the ad to be taken down immediately. Hagel's official statement on the ad reads in part:

"This ad is dishonest. I have never supported immediate removal of American troops from Iraq. I have said that to withdraw from Iraq now would have catastrophic consequences that would ripple across a generation of Americans, Iraqis, and the entire Middle East. I have said I believe we can succeed in Iraq. MoveOn neglects to mention that in their ad.

"I have differences with the Administration over the execution of our war policy …War is deadly serious and the debate over our policy should match the seriousness of the situation. Americans are entitled to an honest public debate about our policy in Iraq. Cheap, misleading 30-second partisan political attack ads debase our debate."

In the statement addressed to MoveOn Hagel demands that the ad be pulled down.

As if. If I were running moveon I'd be laughing in Hagel's face at his rank foolishness. They didn't "take him out of context"; what other possible context could there be to calling the President delusional and invoking the Left's favorite anti-war parallel? Nor did they trick or trap him; indeed, Hagel has been going out of his way to sound as shrilly Bushophobic as anybody across the aisle. Nobody made a sucker out of him - he braided his own noose, stuck his own neck through it, and kicked the stool out from under himself. All moveon did is snap a pic or two and otherwise enjoy watching him swing.

If Hagel truly thinks moveon's ad is "dishonest," "cheap," and "misleading," perhaps he will revisit his own dishonest, cheap, misleading rhetoric that got his words and name prominently featured in spots that will be used against Republican congressional candidates next year.

Or maybe he's just sore because his perfidy got caught in the klieg lights of public scrutiny, necessitating more "dishonest, cheap, misleading" rhetoric to try and cover his worthless ass.

If Nebraska's senior senator still harbors 2008 presidential ambitions, it would seem that it's not the President of the United States who's suffering delusions.