OctoRush by Barry Blitt
Retired Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, during an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” weighed in on recent antics certain high-profile Republicans.
He also criticized former Vice President Dick Cheney for claiming that the Obama administration has placed the nation in danger and noted that Cheney was partly responsible for the “mess” the Bush administration left behind.
On the show, Hagel took a shot at new Republican Party chairman Michael Steele. Asked about Steele’s threat to support primary challengers against Republican Senators Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe, who each defied GOP leaders and voted for Obama’s stimulus package, Hagel called it “a very foolish, foolish move,” commenting, “there’s no room for that kind of silliness.” He added, “People expect serious people to deal with serious issues and to govern seriously. And when you don’t do that, you become irrelevant.”
Prior to the taping, he also let David Corn of Mother Jones know that there is no love lost between he and El Rushbo:
Rush Limbaugh is “the center of gravity” of the Republican Party, and “we need a new center of gravity,” Hagel told me on Tuesday night….Maddow did not ask Hagel about Limbaugh. But prior to the taping, Hagel was not shy about bemoaning Limbaugh’s drag on his party. He told me that Limbaugh was the opposite of what the Republican Party needs now. “We blew eight years of governing,” Hagel said, excoriating GOPers for having “run up” the national debt. “You can only blame Ted Kennedy for so much,” he remarked.
Hat tip: A Kleinheider Joint
