Lorie Boyd of Wizbang has apparently never read the American Conservative Union scorecard for the senate nor looked at a senate voting record.
War protester and Today show host Meredith Vieira referred to Chuck Hagel in an interview with Laura Bush today as a “conservative” Senator who had been a longtime supporter of her husband. She then asked if the President felt betrayed by Hagel’s opposition to the surge. I know Vieira is hopelessly biased by her personal views, but is she really that ignorant of Chuck Hagel’s history? Chuck Hagel was calling Iraq Vietnam back in the days when many Democrats were still in support of the mission there. [emphasis added]
One is conservative based on ideology, not fealty to the president. Even question Hagel’s Republican hacks — something that I could see coming based on Hagel’s statements against escalating the Iraq war –would be silly when put in the context of his voting record. But Boyd didn’t do that - she focused on even calling Hagel a conservative.
It must be pretty embarrassing for Boyd to launch a critique on a media personality based on ignorance of “Chuck Hagel’s history,” but fail to demonstrate any vision for his history beyond his positioning on the Iraq war, let alone source any of the critique on Hagel’s voting history in the Senate.
Given that Hagel is a conservative Republican who voted in support of the Bush agenda more than any other senator last year, I think calling Hagel a conservative Bush supporter makes perfect sense, excepting his Iraq positioning. Adding the words “on Iraq” would make the statement wrong (Boyd doesn’t link to the Vieira transcript), but short of that why would you disavow one of the most conservative senators from that moniker because of his position on one issue? It’s just dumb.
Technorati Tags: Chuck Hagel, Lorie Boyd
5 Responses to “Dumb Hagel Coverage”
[...] Enough. Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel is not a maverick. He is not a rebel. He is not a moderate. He is not John McCain circa 2000. He does not benefit from a strong “Draft Hagel” movement. He is not a Republican Democrats can like. To borrow the words of Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback, we need to take the “Chuck Hagel is a maverick” meme behind a barn and kill it with a dull axe [...]
[...] Enough. Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel is not a maverick. He is not a rebel. He is not a moderate. He is not John McCain circa 2000. He does not benefit from a strong “Draft Hagel” movement. He is not a Republican Democrats can like. To borrow the words of Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback, we need to take the “Chuck Hagel is a maverick” meme behind a barn and kill it with a dull axe. [...]
[...] Dumb Hagel Coverage [...]
Nice day,
Something to say?
[...] Cillizza offers plenty of support to the notion that Hagel is out of touch with the Republican base on Iraq, but, like Lorie Boyd, says nothing - nothing - about how Hagel’s ideology aligns with the Republican base on issues other than Iraq. He says nothing of how he thinks Hagel is out of step with Republican voters on taxes, social issues, and defense issues. He votes the right way for Republicans, so I’d really have liked to hear where Cillizza is basing this conclusion. We are asked to simply trust that because Hagel differs with Bush on Iraq he is wholly cut from the cloth of a maverick. [...]
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February 2, 2007 at 12:02pm