While we were bringing in a Presidential candidate to Omaha, Nebraska, another potential candidate was holding a fundraiser on Friday - Senator Chuck Hagel. Ostensibly for a Senate reelection bid, Hagel brought in some prominent Republicans from around the country, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell had some interesting comments to the Lincoln Journal Star’s Don Walton:

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell lavished praise Friday on Sen. Chuck Hagel and said many of his warnings about the Iraq war have been validated.

“Many of the predictions Chuck Hagel made about the war came true,” the Kentucky senator said in a brief interview after his remarks at a fundraising reception.

“They have proven to be accurate.”

Hagel’s views on the war “have not diminished his effectiveness,” McConnell said, and may, in fact, increase his effectiveness over time.

What McConnell fails to acknowledge is that while Hagel was giving those warnings, McConnell was a gung-ho supporter of the war effort. In fact, he still is. It was McConnell who prevented any sort of debate on the escalation in Iraq. It’s been McConnell who has tried to save the White House from embarrassment at the cost of his own party’s electoral success.

Mitch McConnell, October 2002:

Let me say to my colleagues who suggest that diplomatic initiatives and weapon inspections can prevent the coming conflict with Iraq to look at recent history. Saddam Hussein has violated each and every one of the 16 U.N. Security Council Resolutions pertaining to Iraq. His armed forces continue to fire on American and coalition aircraft in the no-fly zone. Al-Qaida terrorists continue to leave footprints on Iraqi soil. And Saddam Hussein and his henchmen continue to make billions of dollars by exploiting the U.N.’s oil for food program and through other illicit activities.

Although the regime recently proved that it can fool some embarrassingly naive visiting American lawmakers into believing its empty assurances of cooperation and compliance, they are not duping this Senator–or the President.

More importantly, the American people will not follow the lead of these modern-day Neville Chamberlains and allow the United States to be played for a fool. For it is only a fool who does not learn from past mistakes, and the world has ten years of Iraqi lies from which to learn. Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly a day after the anniversary of the September 11th attacks, President Bush challenged the United Nations to maintain its relevancy in a world challenged by terror:

Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. . . . [America] will work with the U.N. Security Council to meet our common challenge. If Iraq’s regime defies us again, the world must move deliberately, decisively to hold Iraq to account. We will work with the U.N. Security Council for the necessary resolutions.

The fact is that President Bush is giving the United Nations and the international community a final chance to disarm Saddam Hussein through diplomatic means. But under no illusions of Saddam Hussein’s violent and irrational character, the President has made clear that if reason fails, force will prevail. I am reminded of President Franklin Roosevelt insights into Nazi Germany and Adolph Hitler: “No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it. There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness. There can be no reasoning with an incendiary bomb.”

Ah, the “Hitler” comparison. The last refuge of a man with no reasonable arguments. Many of Hagel’s warnings were correct, but the implication of that remark from McConnell is that he, and the vast majority of Republicans, were and still are completely wrong.

At least they’re ready to finally admit it. But don’t expect them to do anything about it.

Former Omaha Mayor Hal Daub, as expected, announced his plans to enter the 2008 Senate race this morning.

But quite unexpected was Daub’s refusal to shut the door on a Senate bid should Hagel decide to seek reelection. In our clearest indication yet that the Nebraska Republican Party may be ready to move on from Chuck Hagel, Daub said he won’t base his decision of whether to run or not on Hagel’s presence in the race. Bruning said the same thing in April, except with more of an eye toward forcing Hagel out of the race.

Daub claims he will embark on a “listening tour” across the state, and base his decision to run on what he hears from the Nebraska voters. But Daub has already heard from the voters of Nebraska on more than one occasion, losing two statewide elections - one primary and one general - and losing reelection as mayor of Omaha. As Ryan Anderson points out, Hal Daub seems to be running against Hal Daub.

Daub’s six years as mayor of Omaha were steeped in controversy. Never one to work well with others, Hal Daub drew heated and contentious fights with the Omaha City Council. Omahans grew tired of this, and threw his ass out in 2001. In Mike Fahey, the man who defeated him in that election, it became very clear that Omaha had found the right man for the job. Consider this from Fahey’s campaign announcement in December, 2000:

In remarks prepared for delivery at his campaign headquarters near 132nd and L Streets, Fahey never mentioned Daub’s name. But the frequent conflict between Daub and members of the City Council provided the backdrop for Fahey’s speech.

“I understand that it takes an evenhanded personality to forge mutually respectful relationships with a sometimes divided and divisive electorate,” Fahey said.

“People want decisive leadership, not divisive leadership. People prefer consensus, not confrontation.”
Omaha World-Herald December 20, 2000

In the last six years, Fahey has proven to be the decisive leader that he promised he would be in 2001. The people of Omaha responded in kind, overwhelmingly reelecting Fahey to a second term in 2005.

Now, both Daub and Fahey are considering taking a run at the U.S. Senate. And based on their records alone, it should be clear who the superior choice is. As Ryan wrote last week:

The Fahey administration has committed itself to fiscally responsible growth, and in this area they have been remarkably successful. Buildings have been raised, standards of living have been raised, but taxes haven’t. Their bold advocacy of a city-county merger is a model of effective government that could cut red tape and save the state money. Apparently, all this hasn’t gone unnoticed (or unappreciated) out west.

Now 52 weeks away from what promises to be a heated Republican fight for the nomination - it’s clear that Nebraska, like Omaha in 2001, is in need of decisive leadership, just the kind that Mike Fahey has provided for the city of Omaha over the past six years. And the kind that will earn the respect of Nebraskans of both parties, from all corners of the state.