CHUCK'S CHANCE

So Chuck Hagel is saying his ideas are closer to Obama's, but he doesn't plan to endorse either candidate. Could mean he's still trying to negotiate himself a spot on the ticket (seems unlikely), or he doesn't want to offend his friend John McCain or hurt himself further within the GOP, or he wants to burnish his non-partisan credentials by being not even partisan enough to support a presidential candidate. Who knows? But it occurs to me that Hagel could draw some more of the attention he seems to relish, and earn some good will from congressional leadership, if he stays neutral but pipes up every now and then to slap back some of Joe Lieberman's ridiculous attacks on Barack Obama. Picture it: Lieberman pops up to say Obama can't protect us from terrorists because he's a McGovernite, and then Chuck Hagel pops up to steal Lieberman's thunder to declare the comments out of bound, appeal for a politics that elevates us and doesn't appeal to our fears, vouch that both candidates are committed to keep us safe, remind his good friend Joe that such fear-mongering got us into a quagmire in Iraq, etc. - all this coming from a Republican who is so non-partisan he won't endorse a candidate! There's your David Broder headline. I mean, is that any more politically risky than musing about impeachment? And the guy's not running for re-election.