HAGEL's brother on the Tweety circus

[UTUSN]

O.K., I was going to post a snarky, a-hole-ly deal along the lines of, "Tweety's man-crush McCAIN in the toilet, so Tweety finds a new one..."

But in Googling "Hagel brother," there was this item describing how both Chuck and Tom served in Vietnam TOGETHER and literally saved each other's lives, grew up in poverty, and Tom became a Liberal lawyer working for the poor. So I'll find something else to gig Tweety about some other time. Soon.

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http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/04/30/hagel_brothers/

The private war of Chuck and Tom Hagel
After saving each other's lives in combat, Chuck Hagel, the future Republican senator of Nebraska, and his brother Tom fought about Vietnam and Iraq -- until they finally saw eye to eye.

By Myra MacPherson

.... When Chuck and Tom returned home to Nebraska, however, their similar experiences did not translate into similar politics. Their divide mirrored the deep ideological split of the nation. Tom thought Vietnam was a horrible waste. Chuck thought Vietnam was a noble cause gone wrong. Their disagreement over Vietnam led to shoving matches and fistfights.

In the years after Vietnam, Tom became a law professor and passionate liberal, Chuck a wealthy entrepreneur and senator and equally committed conservative. It took the brothers decades to reach a rapprochement about Vietnam, as Chuck gradually accepted some of Tom's arguments about the waste of American lives. When it came to the Iraq war, however, it took only a fraction of that time for their shared experiences to bring the brothers to similar conclusions, and to turn Chuck Hagel, as he proved again on April 26 with his vote for withdrawal, into the most visible Republican opponent of President Bush's Iraq policy. ....

The day after my most recent of many interviews with him, Hagel left Washington for his fifth visit to Iraq. While in Iraq, he took a swipe at surge supporter John McCain during a press conference. "We didn't go shopping," said Hagel, archly, referring to McCain's infamous stroll through an open-air Baghdad market while protected by massive firepower. On his return from Iraq, Hagel gave his younger brother Mike a grim assessment. "Every time I go over," he said, "it gets worse. It is so bad now it is pathetic." ....

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[TwilightGardener]

1. I like Tom Hagel--caught him on TV, and he impressed me.

I think he ought to run for office--might be a good Dem candidate for Rep or Senate. He sounds as principled as Chuck, but definitely kinder and without his brother's fatal flaw (conservatism).