Susan Estrich at Foxnews totally trashes Condi Rice. A couple of snippets:The woman who went to Capitol Hill on Thursday to defend the president’s proposed escalation of the Iraq war is not on anyone’s short list for anything in 2008.

As for the accuracy of Hagel, a lot of people knew this would be a bitch of a mess to get into. I don’t think too many people predicted the total collapse of Hussein the way it panned out. All that proved to people like me is that Hussein had a lot less of a true grip on his country as was perceived. What he did was squelch information coming out of Iraq. We walked into a landmine. However, the original goal was to get Hussein out. That has been done. What the US needs to be doing right now, and Bush is selling 100% wrong, is making sure someone just as radical and corrupt as Hussein doesn’t take over and cause exactly the same problems we had before. I could care less if they are a democracy or not, that’s their choice. What I do care is their government is not the next Taliban or Somalia. Until the Iraqis can get an established government that is civilized towards us, it’s people, and the world, we need to be there as much to protect ourselves as anything else. The people like Boxer, Pelosi, and Hagel, all tend to ignore what all was going on around the world at the time the decisions were made and pretend all was well. We sent a message by taking out Hussein and the Taliban. That message seems to have struck a lot of nerves all over the planet. However, we have not had one single African Embassy massacre, World Trade Center, USS Cole, or even airline hijacking since. Some people still cling to the idea it’s a coincedence or the people doing it are saving themselves for the next big one. The “next big one” was every year for a decade. Why have they suddenly switched to every five years and counting? Bottom line, it’s not coincedence. The war has moved away from the continental US and back to Iraq. That makes things a lot safer for me. And THAT is the bottom line responsibility of the President.

As we sort through the born-again Iraq War critics of both parties who are facing re-election, or running for President, I think it is important to keep in the forefront what they were actually saying in run-up to the war pre 03/03, when it might have made a difference.

This is the thrust of my most recent YouTube effort “It’s the war, stupid.” and recent blog post of the same name.

Among Republicans, Chuck Hagel stands alone (as you point out) as a consistent critic of the administration’s handling of the war. Whatever you think of the “surge” it will guarantee that the Iraq War will be a bigger and an even more unpopular issue in 2008. I’m guessing that makes Hagel the only electable Republican in 2008.

If you want to really appreciate how far Hagel was ahead of the curve on Iraq, check out this video of his speech at Kansas State University in February of 2003 (Landon Lecture Series – warning it is long some 50 minutes).

Filmed a few weeks before we went into Iraq, Hagel warns about almost every single thing that has happened as a consequence over the last three years. Not hindsight, real foresight. It’s scary how on-target he was – He sounds like a friggin’ prophet now. Nobody was listening to him. Not in the administration. Not the American people. Just one voice lost in the winds of war fever. I include myself among the deaf, as I was as gung-ho as every other yahoo at the time.