From today's WSJ: Here An Anxious Nation Holds Its Breath--Day 521 Do you ever feel like Charlie Brown when Lucy pulls the football away? That's how America feels right now, and Chuck Hagel is Lucy. As we noted in June, the sage senator from Nebraska, who thought about running for president and then decided he was too good even for a Senate seat, was thinking about endorsing Barack Obama for president. Hagelians waited with bated breath, but today they exhaled, confused as ever, USA Today reports: Hagel . . . is sitting out the presidential contest, according to his spokesman, Jordan Stark. . . . "Senator Hagel has no intention of getting involved in any of the campaigns and is not planning to endorse either candidate," Stark said in a statement to USA Today. However, the Financial Times reports that Obama has been endorsed by three "prominent Republicans": former senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, who lost his 2006 re-election bid, former representative Jim Leach of Iowa, who also lost his 2006 re-election bid, and Rita Hauser. Who in the Sam Hill is Rita Hauser? The New York Sun tells us: [She is a] PLO apologist whose law firm, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, racked up millions of dollars in legal fees over the years as a registered foreign agent of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Ms. Hauser met with Mr. Arafat as early as 1988, when America still considered him a terrorist and refused even to allow him access to the United Nations headquarters in New York. At least she didn't lose her 2006 re-election bid. The Sun points out that Chafee also has an anti-Israel record, having blocked John Bolton's confirmation as U.N. ambassador on the ground that the Bush administration was too favorably disposed to the Jewish state. As for Leach, he voted "no" on the Iran Freedom Support Act, a sanctions measure, in 2006. It passed the House, 397-21. In addition, Chafee was the only Senate Republican to vote against the liberation of Iraq (even Hagel supported it), and Leach was one of just six GOP House members to vote "no." This position may be more popular in retrospect than it was at the time, but it does show that these guys are far from the Republican Party's mainstream. Yeah, a big crossover there.. a handful of Republicans in name only. Golf clap...
