Chuck Hagel, Nebraska’s senior U.S. Senator, a Vietnam veteran, made an impassioned plea to change their minds, citing a poll by the Military Times that only 35 percent of the U.S. military support Bush's war policy."There is no strategy," Hagel said. "This is a ping-pong game with American lives. 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. ... That is the essence of our responsibility. And if we're not willing to do it, we're not worthy to be seated right here. We fail our country."
..."If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes. This is a tough business. But is it any tougher, us having to take a tough vote, express ourselves and have the courage to step up on what we're asking our young men and women to do?"
If by some longshot chance Chuck Hagel would win the 2008 Republican nomination and run against Hillary, I could probably be convinced to do something I told myself I'd never do again.
