|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By George Packer $14.99
$23
$40
|
|
|
|
 house.gov
|
Just a day after winning the presidency, Barack Obama has started hiring. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, one of the architects of the Democrats’ congressional majority, is in line to be chief of staff. Sen. Chuck Hagel, the anti-war Republican, could be named to a Cabinet post, while Sen. John Kerry is said to be after the secretary of state job. Updated yet again.
|

|
Barack Obama’s decision to forgo a visit with wounded U.S. troops in Germany during the European leg of his recent international sojourn gave John McCain’s camp the idea for a new advertisement criticizing the Illinois senator, although Obama’s team and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel beg to differ with its premise.
|
 Flickr / James Gordon
|
The U.S. Embassy has reported that Barack Obama arrived safely in Iraq, where he is expected to meet with Gen. David Petraeus and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The candidate is traveling with fellow Iraq war critics Sen. Jack Reed and Sen. Chuck Hagel.
|
 warnewsradio.org
|
Senate Republicans have successfully blocked a three-month expansion of troop leave, which the Democrats hoped would provide pressure to withdraw without cutting off funds. John McCain called the effort to give our fighting men and women 15 months off between combat deployments “dangerous.”
|

|
Retiring Sen. Chuck Hagel tells Bill Maher why the president’s exploitation of Gen. Petraeus is “not only a dirty trick, but it’s dishonest, it’s hypocritical, it’s dangerous and irresponsible. The fact is, this is not Petraeus’ policy, it’s Bush’s policy.”
|
|
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — As Virginia goes, so goes the Senate—and the nation? The decision of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner to run for the seat of retiring Republican Sen. John Warner is more than just bad news for the GOP.
|
|
So much for “supporting our troops”: A bipartisan proposal sponsored by two combat veterans to give exhausted U.S. troops more time between their military deployments overseas was defeated by Republicans in the Senate, the first vote of a two-week congressional debate on Iraq.
|
|
The Senate Intelligence Committee has declassified and released two prewar intelligence reports that warned a postwar Iraq could struggle with sectarian violence and might benefit al-Qaida and Iran. Democrats on the panel, along with Republicans Chuck Hagel and Olympia Snowe, criticized the Bush administration for ignoring the prescient warnings.
|
 CrooksandLiars.com
|
Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel told “Face the Nation” on Sunday that he was “not happy with the Republican Party,” and hinted he might make an independent run for president, perhaps with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg by his side.
|
 nytimes.com
|
Three prominent Republican senators expressed their lack of confidence in Alberto Gonzales on Sunday. GOP support has dropped off since Justice Department documents released on Friday caught the attorney general misrepresenting when he first knew about a plan to fire eight U.S. attorneys.
|
|
Senate Republicans managed to block debate Monday on the anti-surge resolution offered by John Warner, R-Va., and Carl Levin, D-Mich. Joe Lieberman, who is fast becoming the president’s most loyal lapdog, argued that debate would hurt troop morale. Chuck Hagel retorted that he would have welcomed debate while serving in Vietnam, where he was wounded.
Find out how your senators voted (“nay” votes were to block the resolution)
|

|
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., took turns trash-talking each other’s Iraq proposals on Sunday’s “This Week.” Hagel threw McCain’s words back at him, calling his benchmark plan for Iraq “disingenuous,” while McCain said that, other than his own, “they’re all bad options….”
|

|
This week, our collection of Truthdig-flavored videos includes Sen. Jim Webb’s response to Bush’s SOTU speech; a misleading U.S. Army recruiting video; and an episode of “30 Days” that puts a conservative Christian in a Muslim household.
|

|
Chuck Hagel has been on a tear lately, but it’s hard to beat this stirring indictment of the war and its enablers: “These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad are not beans. They’re real lives. And we better be damn sure we know what we’re doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder. We better be as sure as you can be.”
|
 news.bbc.co.uk
|
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has passed a nonbinding resolution condemning the escalation of the war. While Vice President Dick Cheney is absolutely right when he says “It won’t stop us,” the measure will at least force lawmakers to take a stand on the issue until tougher legislation can be passed.
|
|
Despite his State of the Union plea to give the Iraq war another chance, the president is suffering defections from his own party, including a number of GOP senators who have emboldened Democrats in their fight against Bush’s planned escalation of the war.
|

|
John McCain may be a little miffed that the president is sending only 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, but he still supports a surge—even, aparently, if it’s unlikely to succeed. Chuck Hagel, on the other hand, thinks sending any troops into a civil war is a mistake, particularly if the prime minister of Iraq doesn’t even want them around.
|
 AP Photo / Gerald Herbert
|
By Robert Scheer — If it ever narrows down to a choice between Chuck Hagel and some Democratic hack who hasn’t the guts to fundamentally challenge the president on Iraq, then the conservative Republican from Nebraska will have my vote. Yes, the war is that important.
|

|
You have to hand it to Joe Lieberman. Rattling off one stale lie and misdirection after another, as he did this Sunday on “Meet the Press,” while maintaining a straight face could not have been easy. Luckily Chuck Hagel was on hand to refute Lieberman’s tired propaganda.
|

|
Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Warner have added their names to the growing list of Republicans who have broken ranks with Bush on Iraq.
Of course, this profoundly un-democratic president has proved himself immune to reasoned criticism, so don’t hold your breath for an Iraq course correction.
|

|
Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel chastised the Bush administration on “Face the Nation,” saying Iraq was headed toward civil war and neither the American people nor Congress would tolerate the continued presence of U.S. troops there.
|
View the most popular tags overall?
|
|