One more thing from last week

As I said in a post below, I was on hiatus most of last week. I did get to hear the NPR news as I was in the car a lot last week. I mentioned Chuck Hagel in a post a long time back and I got to commend the guy for standing up and saying what was on his mind.

Here are few excerpts from a Wall Street Journal column a friend sent me:

This is what he said: Congress has duties; in the case of the war, meeting those duties was not convenient; Congress did not meet them.

And so: "The Congress has stood in the shadow of this issue, Iraq, for four years. As [John] Warner noted...we have a constitutional responsibility as well as a moral responsibility to this country, to the young men and women we ask to go fight and die and their families. ...This is not a defeatist resolution, this is not a cut-and-run resolution, we're not talking about cutting off funds, not supporting the troops. This is a very real, responsible addressing of the most divisive issue in this country since Vietnam.

"Sure it's tough. Absolutely. And I think all 100 senators ought to be on the line on this. What do you believe? What are you willing to support? What do you think? Why are you elected? 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...than what we're asking our young men and women to do? I don't think so."

Later: "I don't question the president's sincerity, his motivations in this. I never have....Part of the problem that we have, I think, is because we didn't -- we didn't involve the Congress in this when we should have. And I'm to blame. Every senator who's been here the last four years has to take some responsibility for that.

"But I will not sit here in this Congress of the United States at this important time for our country and in the world and not have something to say about this....I don't ever want to look back and have the regret that I didn't have the courage and I didn't do what I could....

"I would go back to where I began, and pick up on a point that Chairman [Richard] Lugar mentioned: coherence of strategy. I don't know how many United States senators believe we have a coherent strategy in Iraq. I don't think we've ever had a coherent strategy. In fact, I would even challenge the administration today to show us the plan that the president talked about the other night. There is no plan. I happen to know Pentagon planners were on their way to the Central Com over the weekend. They haven't even Team B'd this plan....And I want every one of you, every one of us, 100 senators, to look in that camera, and you tell your people back home what you think. Don't hide anymore; none of us.

"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 we don't debate this...we are not worthy of our country."

Folks, this is what the legislature is supposed to do - play watchdog to the executive. Tonight's new had stories about Hugo Chavez having sole power in Venezuela. I cracked wise a bit about Bush being envious of Chavez being able to govern without a legislature. Then I realized that is what Bush did for almost six years.

But Mr. Hagel said the most serious thing that has been said in Congress in a long time. This is what we're here for. This is why we're here, to decide, to think it through and take a stand, and if we can't do that, why don't we just leave and give someone else a chance?

The column ended with remarks about John Kerry. I had not heard anything about Kerry on the radio. As this column came from the Wall Street Journal, I thought the following was even more impressive:

A note too on John Kerry, who, on the floor of the Senate, also talked about Iraq this week, and said he would not run for president. Clearly he saw the lipstick writing on the wall: This is the year of the woman. He also might have been acting on the sense that this is a time of ongoing and incipient political flux. The major parties seem as played out as they are ruthless, and the arc of political fame is truncated: nobodies become somebodies become has-beens before half the country knows their name. The Democrats have no idea what they stand for, the Republicans only remember what they stood for.

But there was Mr. Kerry, liberated by the death of a dream and for once quite human as he tried to tell it the way he actually saw it. Took the mock right out of me. Good for him, and for Mr. Hagel. I wonder if we are seeing the start of a new seriousness.

Well, one could not expect an unmitigated compliment from the WSJ to John Kerry, could one?