Hagel Will Retire
Written by Sam on September 8th, 2007
WASHINGTON - Chuck Hagel will announce Monday that he is retiring from the U.S. Senate and will not run for president next year, people close to the Nebraska Republican said Friday.
Hagel plans to announce that “he will not run for re-election and that he does not intend to be a candidate for any office in 2008,” said one person, who asked not to be named.
Hagel has scheduled a press conference for 10 a.m. Monday at the Omaha Press Club.
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out, Chuck. I knew he would retire. He has zero shot at running for President and he can’t run for reelection to the Senate because he knows he’ll lose in the primary. His conservative challenger is already polling ahead of him. Maybe if he didn’t spend so much time shooting off his mouth and grandstanding in front of the TV cameras he might still get some respect in the Cornhusker State.
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Good Riddance!
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I understand your antipathy towards McCain or Chafee, for example, but I’ve never understood the bitterness towards Hagel. I know he’s very right-leaning on civil liberties issues. He’s also far right on economic issues, no? And he’s consistent on the war, anyway. It’s a stretch to call opposition to the war “right” or “left”.
This is why you guys are losing the libertarian-leaning Republicans in the Mountain West. Bible-beating idiots from Alabama and Mississippi aren’t enough to win a national election.
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Thats deep publius. Very deep.
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How about secular “idiots” who can’t stand Hagel’s libertine views on immigration?
Glad to see Hagel go, notwithstanding his sensible opinions about this disastrous war. Now if only Specter, Miss Lindsey, and St. John of Arizona would follow Hagel out of the Senate.
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Hagel is a huge leftist on immigration, which is the most important issue.
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I don’t understand how immigration suddenly became the raison d’etre for the conservative cause. For 20 years, the status quo wasn’t much of a problem for anyone and there wasn’t much noise from either side, except for some loonies. Suddenly, in the Summer of 2006, this morphed into an issue at the top of everyone’s agenda.
It seems to me that this immigration thing is more hype than substance. It’s the new gay marriage, I guess, since everyone but Pat Robertson and Tony Perkins is tired of hearing about that now. I bet the temper tantrums over immigration similarly disappear in 3 or 4 years, at which point everyone besides Tom Tancredo will be tired of hearing about it.
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Amnesty bill and micromanaging timetables on the war on terrorism were the two worst things Hagel offered. Along with voting for some spending increase bills (pork) was bad as well. Hagel was not as terrible as some other republicans were on various issues (he was more conservative on economic issues than all democrats + Chaffe, Specter, Voinovich, and both Maine senators), but he gave himself too much TV time. I generally view Hagel as a dissapointment, though he would of been a good Democrat.
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Suddenly? Funny, I remember the status quo being a huge problem back in the mid-nineties. And in the eighties, too, come to think of it–Reagan said that we’ve lost control of our borders, and that no country could survive a status quo like that for very long.
Reagan thought that what was then the status quo on immigration (which was nowhere near as bad as the status quo we have today) was a huge problem. So he made a compromise, with this promise: Amnesty now, but after that we’ll enforce the immigration laws. The promise of enforcement was the reason why the opposition to the Reagan amnesty wasn’t as widespread or as fierce as the opposition to the Bush amnesty. It wasn’t until later that we realized the federal government just wasn’t going to make a serious effort to enforce immigration law.
Another reason why opposition to the Reagan amnesty wasn’t as widespread or as strong as the opposition to the Bush amnesty is that the Bush amnesty was going to be an awful lot worse than the Reagan amnesty, not least in terms of the number of illegals rewarded for their misbehavior.
And whatever opposition there is today, it’ll be heard by a lot more people than heard the opponents of amnesty in 1986. Federal policy has been out of step with the popular will (and especially conservative opinion) for decades, but now the widespread use of the Internet and the greater accessibility of conservative thought in the media (e.g., talk radio) allow conservatives to make their views known, views that our elected representatives can’t ignore with the impunity that they used to enjoy.
The widespread (not unanimous, but pretty damn widespread) and intense conservative opposition to amnesty has been building up for a long time, and it’s not just recently that it’s reached this level. You’re simply making stuff up when you say that for 20 years the status quo wasn’t much of a problem for anyone.
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Hi–your “lib” poster posting again.
Quick question: What is the “left” or “Right” position on immigration. The way I see it–President Bush and many conservatives locked arms with Ted Kennedy and many Liberals to push the immigration bill.
So–Is it liberals that are pro-immigration. Or is it conservatives?
By the way, I think it was the Conservatives that pointed out that only “bigots and unpatriotic Americans” were against the immigration bill. Which kind of leave me stumped because I am against it, but in terms of the lack of infrastructure to facilitate the influx and not in terms or economics, race, nationality and such.
Questions like How do you keep track of the people coming in? Why do they have to pay thousands of dollars just for identification and tax numbers? Plus, what about those who are already here–why would they think that going back to their homelands would ensure they can comeback? How about those who have no intentions of staying?
That Bill was a big mess. I did not think any immigrant–illegal or otherwise, could take advantage of it. More like a con job than visionary politics.
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You know the conservative view on immigration, I take your question to be more of rhetorical grandstanding than an actual question. You know, as well as everyone, that true conservatives were against the amnesty bill - that’s why it died in the Senate, because most Americans, not just conservatives, flooded the place with phone calls against the travesty.
You can try to play word games all you want, but by simply painting “conservatives” with the immigration bill willy-nilly just because Bush and some Senate Republicans (and the RNC in general) supported it is BS and you or anyone else who reads this blog regularly knows it. Movement conservatives have been critical of Bush and Co. for a long time, and immigration was just one of many transgressions for the Big Government Republicans (which should be an oxymoron, but is mainstream nowadays) against the base, and quite frankly most Americans in general.
You completely contradicted yourself in your last statement. The bill WAS a big mess, BECAUSE any illegal immigrant could take advantage of it.
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Two things —
1. I agree that there was some noise on immigration before Summer 2006, but surely you would agree that that there was a massive and sudden increase in the level of attention people devoted to this issue. I was just wondering whether something substantive happened in the mean time. My guess is probably not, and that these right-wing temper tantrums on immigration are probably just mass hysteria that builds on itself.
2. I think that restricting immigration is an anti-conservative position. It’s the free market. If there weren’t jobs for these people, they wouldn’t come. Obviously, they’re here because opportunities exist that make them better off that also make Americans better off in the aggregate. As a liberal who appreciates the free market, I’m ambivalent on the matter. Mainly, I’m concerned about the distribution of income, I think that it drives down wages for low-skilled Americans and I care about poor people. You don’t care about poor people, of course, but do you really want to pay $18 a pint for strawberries?
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I already answered Publius on point 1.
As to point 2, a few responses.
First, conservatives are not libertarians.
Second, the employers don’t focus on what “make[s] Americans better off in the aggregate,” they focus on what makes them (the employers) better off in the aggregate–the employers don’t pay the costs of educating the illegals’ children for free; the employers don’t pay for medical bills and welfare for illegals, or the increased crime committed by illegals; the employers don’t pay the owners of the property that illegals trample over to come across the border, they don’t pay to clean up the garbage that illegals dump on the property they cross when they come north looking for work, and so on.
Third, as for this nonsense about paying $18 for strawberries, I seem to recall that Americans used to do farm jobs pretty well, and agriculture wasn’t exorbitantly priced back then. Quite to the contrary, agriculture is a horrible industry in which to make your case (actually they all are)–labor is only a tiny fraction of the cost of the product. The costs are concentrated in areas like land, water, fertilizer, transportation, packaging. If we doubled the wages for strawberry-pickers, you likely wouldn’t even notice the price increase. Certainly that price increase would be less than the cost of the social problems being caused by illegal aliens.
And as for you flinging about these demagogic insults about conservatives’ not caring about poor people–dude, you and Joseph T. McCarthy should just leave this site and start your own.
Where do you get your information and why don’t you leave it there?
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Publius- Income is not distrubuted. There is no “income pot” from which mother Govt hands it out to the peasants. Income (or wealth) is created by the individual. When liberals realize this, they will discover that their sole reason for existence is gone.
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First, you didn’t respond to the broad point about open borders and free market principles. If there weren’t jobs for these people, they wouldn’t come. You presumably support free flow of goods across borders; the benefits of free flow of labor across borders would follow exactly the same argument.
On your first point (hidden costs), illegal immigrants pay *far* more in taxes than social services they collect. In California, specifically, the government has about a 3:1 ratio of taxes paid by illegal immigrants versus cost of social services.
On your second point, do you have any data supporting your claim about the unit cost of agricultural goods? My guess is that you’re wrong and my other guess is that I’m more educated than you are about economics, therefore my guess is better than your *guess*. Just because you heard Rush Limbaugh say it on his program doesn’t make it true.
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Dave —
All government activity redistributes income. The construction of a road redistributes income from taxpayers at large to people who drive on the road. Operating Yellowstone Park redistributes income to people who like to visit Yellowstone park.
Making the term “redistribution” out to be akin to “child molestation” is ridiculous. Everyone supports at least some redistribution.
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Publius,
Your income distribution comment was clearly directed at the “poor”, not highway construction. Dont pretend like building a highway is the same as paying people not to work or improve their lives.
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They’re both redistributions, but you only like redistributions to you!
You like the redistribution to road-users and yellowstone-park-visitors because you’re likely to be a member of those groups.
You don’t like redistribution to the poor because you weren’t born into poverty.