Chuck Hagel

US President Barack Obama on Wednesday named two distinguished ex-senators to a board tasked with providing him with objective advice in intelligence matters free of political bias. Republican Chuck Hagel and Democrat David Boren will both serve as co-chairman of the President?s Intelligence Advisory Board, which offers oversight of the quality, effectiveness and performance of US intelligence agencies. US intelligence agencies have endured a grim few years following the failure to disrupt the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the botched classified assessments on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. Agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency have also faced outrage following their use of ... Read Full Story

President Barack Obama says two former senators will lead an advisory board charged with giving him unvarnished counsel about the nation's intelligence. The president on Wednesday introduced Republican Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Democrat David Boren of Oklahoma as co-chairmen of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board. The job of the board is to provide Obama with an independent source of advice about the effectiveness of the intelligence community. At a Cabinet Room event, Obama said the two will report to him and have his full support. Obama said he will announce other board members soon. He says the quality of the intelligence system is ... Read Full Story

Is it just me, or did Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel jack John McCain's "maverick," busting heads with your own party angle , years ago? Ever since McCain cuddled up to Georgie Porgie in hopes of tricking the party base into liking him, that whole "maverick/Country First" label reads more like "party capitulator/McCain First." Hagel didn't mince words. He's a member of the club . Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska yesterday became the nation’s most prominent Republican officeholder to publicly question whether Sarah Palin has the experience to serve as president. "She doesn’t have any foreign policy credentials," Hagel said in an interview with the ... Read Full Story

Greed is good. A world without nukes is better. Actor Michael Douglas, whose performance as the conniving Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street" won him an Oscar in 1987, spent part of Wednesday evening focused on a more critical cause — ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Douglas moderated a panel of Washington experts on the issue — former Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and Robert Gallucci, a former U.S. diplomat who was chief negotiator during the nuclear crisis with North Korea in 1994. Douglas questioned Hagel about whether the new Obama administration has provided a transformational opportunity for the world's nuclear-armed ... Read Full Story

I love how Chuck Hagel is always running around pretending to be courageous by bashing president Bush and republicans. It’s only courageous when you’re actually a member of the party you’re bashing. Hagel was written off by most republicans years ago when he joined with the cowardly democrats against the Iraq war. The reality is that Hagel’s been auditioning for a prime spot in an Obama administration for at least 2 years. Which is why the Bush bashing, Limbaugh bashing, and general republican bashing he engaged in today rings so damn hollow. I find people like Hagel particularly distasteful in the same way I ... Read Full Story