Hagel rebuts Cheney

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Last week, on FOX, Dick Cheney said that "attempts to stem President Bush's new Iraq plan... were undercutting U.S. troops in Iraq," according to E&P. Specifically, Cheney was referring to congressional attempts by Democrats and Republican critics like Chuck Hagel to block the surge.

This week, on CBS, Hagel said that it "is complete nonsense to say we're undercutting the support of the troops". Indeed: "We're Article 1 of the Constitution. We are co-equal branch of government. Are we not to participate? Are we not to say anything? Are we not to register our sense of where we're going in this country on foreign policy? Bottom line is this: Our young men and women and their families, these young men and women who are asked to fight and die deserve a policy worthy of those sacrifices. I don't think we have one now."

Eloquently put. And who has more credibility on whether or not U.S. troops are being undercut, a decorated veteran like Hagel or an armchair militarist who received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, whose military experience consists largely of hunting quail, and who was a chief architect of the disaster that is the Iraq War?

Exactly.

(Think Progress has the video and transcript of Hagel on CBS here.)