The Wall Street Journal Calls Out Chuck Hagel

The Wall Street Journal is tired of hearing Chuck Hagel gripe and they're calling him out in a particularly biting editorial:

Hagel for President

No, that's not an endorsement

No, we don't mean this as an endorsement. The Journal doesn't endorse candidates, and on the big issues of the day we don't much agree with Chuck Hagel in any case. But with the Nebraska Republican loudly agitating for a rapid withdrawal from Iraq, we think it's time the Senator tested his ideas somewhere other than the Sunday talk shows.

If Mr. Hagel thinks his foreign-policy vision is superior to President Bush's or to Senator John McCain's, he should stop booing from the gallery and get into the fight for the Republican Presidential nomination. The primaries are only a year away, and the GOP field awaits a genuine antiwar candidate. It's one thing to win the Beltway media primary, another to prevail among actual voters, as Mr. Bush has done twice.

We'd have thought Mr. Hagel would relish such a contest, especially given his remarks last month about his colleagues. Along with Democrat Joe Biden, the Senator co-sponsored a resolution condemning Mr. Bush's "surge" strategy for Baghdad. And while debating the resolution, the Nebraskan said that "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 were you elected? If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes. This is a tough business."

That "tough" point in particular could use some fleshing out. Our guess is that only in Washington is it considered courageous for a politician to criticize a war that he voted for when it was popular but that public opinion has since turned against. And to do so by offering a "resolution" that has no force of law and is thus meaningless except for the message of American irresolution it sends to our enemies.

Somehow it seems far "tougher" to stand by one's original vote for the war even when it becomes unpopular, as Mr. McCain and Senator Joe Lieberman have done. Or, if you are truly antiwar, to have the courage of those convictions and attempt to cut off funds, as Senator Russ Feingold and Congressman Dennis Kucinich propose. The latter would at least mean taking some responsibility for what happens next.

As far as we can tell from his speeches, Mr. Hagel's larger vision for the Mideast is that the U.S. was much better off before Mr. Bush introduced all that "democracy" nonsense. He'd return to the status quo before 9/11, fighting the war on terror with the Arab dictators we have. The Senator also favors "engaging" Syria and Iran, and he says that "in the Middle East, the core of instability and conflict is the underlying Arab-Israeli problem."

Whatever one thinks of these views, they are not unique or innovative. John Kerry campaigned on them in 2004, but maybe the country has since changed its mind enough to embrace them in 2008. If Mr. Hagel believes what he says, he'll stop insulting shoe salesmen by comparing them to Senators and get into the ring himself.

Go ahead and run, Chuck. Let's see how far your "courageous" anti-war views will take you in the GOP primaries. If you don't make it there, you can always sell shoes.