Chuck Hagel

Charles Timothy "Chuck" Hagel (born October 4, 1946) is a former United States Senator from Nebraska. A member of the Republican Party, he was first elected in 1996 and was reelected in 2002. He declined to run for reelection in 2008. He is often characterized as a political maverick and moderate, similar to fellow Vietnam War veteran Republican Senator John McCain.

Dick Cheney hunting incident

• If he'd been in the military, he would have learned gun safety.

• I took an oath of office to the Constitution, I didn't take an oath of office to my party or my president.
  • On Bush, the GOP, and the Patriot Act,
    

    North Korea's purported first nuclear test

    • We are the adult power in the world. It is because of the United States, our action or inaction, that there will be a resolution here.
    
    

    War on Terrorism

    • We are perceived as a nation at war with Muslims. This debilitating and dangerous perception must be reversed.
      • http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-03-27-voa72.cfm
    
    

    Conflict in Iraq

    • We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam.
      • http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/28/america/NA-GEN-US-Iraq.php
    
    
    • This is a ping-pong game with American lives. These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad, are not beans. They're real lives. And we better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder.
      • On the Iraq troop surge of 2007,
        
        • If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes. This is a tough business.
          • Asking his fellow Senators to support a joint resolution opposing President George W. Bush's troop deployment plan,