(R-Ne) Hagel: Too early to judge Obama

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Omaha World Herald

By Robynn Tysver

Former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel says President Barack Obama took office at a time when this nation’s problems rivaled those encountered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democrat who presided over the nation’s climb from the Great Depression and entry into World War II.

Hagel, who spoke to The World-Herald after giving a Veterans Day speech Thursday at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, called it too early to judge Obama’s presidency.

Obama took over amid a “global financial crisis” and while the nation was at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hagel said.

The former GOP senator — who recently served as co-chairman of the Democratic president’s Intelligence Advisory Board — compared Obama’s first years in office to Roosevelt’s in the 1930s.


Read more: http://www.omaha.com/article/20101112/NEWS01/711129887#hagel-too-early-to-judge-obama

[Swede]

1. To the top of the teaparty purge list for Chuck.

This the most reasonible quote I have heard from a Republican in awhile.

[Freddie Stubbs]

3. Hagel was very critical of Bush

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/08/18/hagel.iraq/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122001488.html?nav=rss_print/asection

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/31/hagel.mideast/index.html

[nyy1998]

14. Hagel has been a fairly strong moderate Republican the past 4-5 years.

[CakeGrrl]

2. A sane Republican? Increasingly rare breed. n/t

[herbm]

11. There's more of us than you think.

[TwilightGardener]

4. He offers some much-needed perspective. Thanks, Chuck!

[arbusto_baboso]

5. When righties say there are none of them I respect, Chuck is one of the examples I use to prove

them wrong.

Not to say I don't disagree with hagel on some things, but he's a sane, reasonable man.

[truthisfreedom]

6. What? No inflammatory rhetoric?

Is this a real human being? Freaky. I didn't know they came in red.

[Ratty]

8. Yeah but keep in mind

The former GOP senator — who recently served as co-chairman ...

Makes all the difference in the world

[Frisbee]

7. Hagel has always been one of if not the most...

reasonable republicans. He probably couldn't be elected in today's political environment as a republican. One of those few, who even when I disagree with them, I still have respect for them. Can't say that about too many repukes these days.

[gratuitous]

9. Maybe it IS too early, Mr. Hagel

But it's increasingly looking like I and a lot of people I know aren't going to have the luxury of time so see how things play out, whether our country has taken an irrevocable turn toward failure or can still be salvaged. While in the midst of a financial crisis, FDR put into action a lot of programs that put people to work (CCC, WPA, etc.). In the midst of his financial crisis, Obama has done a first rate job of providing breathing room to the monied folks, but he's cutting the flow of oxygen to large portions of the populace to do so.

Now, we're all quite happy that Goldman Sachs has stayed in business so it can dole out multi-million dollar bonuses to overprivileged frat boys. But there are millions of people who would dearly love the opportunity to help re-pave pothole-filled roads, fix up dilapidated school buildings, and repair crumbling bridges, projects that would put people to work, pay them a decent wage, and at the end of it all, have somethinng to show for it. It hardly compares to the millions stuffed into the pockets of a select few, I'll grant you, but the rest of the country might appreciate it a little bit.

[pnorman]

13. Here's the electoral map in 1932:

By the time FDR took office in 1932, the Republican Party was held in deep scorn by the vast majority of Americans. Moreover, a significant fraction of Republican lawmaker supported most of of FDR's New Deal legislation. But with all that political capital, FDR did what had Obama done anything NEAR the same, the Obama-bashers would be hollering: "SELL OUT!" (They now are doing just that!)

1). Most here are by now are well familiar with that "Plot against The White House", so I won't bother digging out the video again. Smedley Butler revealed all the TREASONABLE details to FDR, but he "took no official notice", and allowed ALL the principals to walk.

2). In 1934 (FDR's second year in office), Upton Sinclair was running for Governor of California on what was clearly a progressive New Deal platform. He asked FDR for what would have been critical support. But FDR waffled, engaged in double talk, and even came close to LYING. In the end, Sinclair's opponent, a loathsome reactionary Republican, was`able to claim that "he was running in support of FDR's New Deal"!

This is NOT an anti-FDR tirade, but it's still verifiable history!

[pnorman]

17. What? No response from those who constantly bum-rap Obama,

by comparing him unfavorably to FDR?

[BlueJac]

18. Obama is a corporate tool.......

there you go, you wanted some of it now like it.

[Tx4obama]

10. Your sig ....

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. President Dwight D. Eisenhower to his brother Edgar November 8, 1954

------

And hopefully one day in the future folks will feel the same way about Healthcare Reform.

[sadbear]

12. I think I'd rather have Chuck Hagel over Ben Nelson

Even if he was a republican. (He'd never survive a republican tea party primary, though.)

[CBHagman]

15. In these days of short attention spans and...

...24/7 news coverage, I wish more people had this attitude.

For crying out loud, Ben Quayle ran for Congress (and won) with an ad declaring Obama the worst president in history -- more a comment on Quayle's shallowness and viciousness, as far as I'm concerned, than anything else.

[pipoman]

16. I can't stand DINOs or RINOs

Hagel is no exception.