February 21, 2008
Delegation Led By Biden Safe After Emergency Landing In Afghanistan
Sens. Joseph Biden, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel are safe and unharmed after the helicopter transporting them made an emergency landing in Afghanistan.
"The helicopters transporting the Senate delegation in Afghanistan made an unscheduled landing this morning due to a snowstorm. There were no injuries and all members of the traveling party were safely transported to their destination at Bagram Air Base," said Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander.
Biden is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, on which Kerry and Hagel also sit. The three are in the region visiting Afghanistan, India, Turkey and Pakistan.
Biden is due to report on his trip before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Monday.
-JANE ROH
Posted at 3:34 PM
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Chuck Hagel, Congress, John Kerry, Joseph Biden, Senate
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September 10, 2007
The Maverick Candidate Who Might Have Been
Pity that Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel never jumped into the 2008 presidential race. John McCain is the only big-name GOP candidate who talks about the Iraq war in specifics, while Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have been hanging back cautiously in anticipation of today's report from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Surely the Republican nomination contest could have used an injection of skepticism about the war from someone other than Ron Paul, if only for the practice it would provide candidates ahead of the general election matchup.
But Hagel's almost-candidacy never arrived, despite some sly flirting with the political press. Remember that dinner with Mike Bloomberg? Both men were careful not to kiss and tell, so to speak, but then the Nebraska Republican went ahead and strongly hinted to CBS' Bob Schieffer that a Hagel-Bloomberg ticket might be a pretty good idea.
It was all a big tease.
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Posted at 11:25 AM
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Campaigns, Chuck Hagel, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani, WH 2008
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May 15, 2007
Liveblogging The 2nd GOP Debate
UPDATED.
End note. Tonight's debate felt more substantive than the last meeting of the Republican 10. Candidates got the same 30 seconds or so to answer questions, but there were fewer questions this time, which made the pacing seem more orderly. The questions themselves were also all serious, more or less -- no one got lobbed with an out-of-left-field query (unlike last time around).
Quite a few of the candidates seem to have learned something from McCain. There were more follow-them-to-the-gates-of-hell type responses on terrorism tonight. But no one capped it with a weird, triumphant smile. In fact, we didn't detect any gaffes at all. (If you think Ron Paul's performance qualifies as a gaffe -- you just don't know Ron Paul.)
Overall, the field feels more set in stone than it did before. Of the lower-tier contenders, Gilmore, Huckabee and Tancredo asserted themselves the most, but probably not in a way that will set their campaigns on fire. Thompson was oddly quiet tonight, as was Brownback.
Mercifully, the next debate, this time among the Democrats, is nearly three weeks away. And, most everyone in Washington hopes, a wartime appropriations bill will make it out of Congress and past the president's desk by then. In the time since the debate began tonight, the Pentagon announced the deaths of two more soldiers, one in Iraq and one in Pakistan. Clocks are ticking all around. And no one on that stage knows this more than the guys not named Giuliani or McCain.
FOXNews.com is streaming its debate analysis. See Captain's Quarters, The Caucus, The Corner and The Fix for their takes on the debate.
10:34. And it's over. Hunter had just gotten a chance to sound the alarm on China, his other pet issue after immigration. The center of gravity in the 2008 election will likely remain the Iraq war, and there's little he and other candidates can do about that. But how much longer can the front-runners campaign on Iraq and fiscal policy alone? Shouldn't they have to give serious thought to, say, China's growing economic influence and military growth as well?
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Posted at 8:37 PM
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Campaigns, Chuck Hagel, Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Republicans, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, Tommy Thompson, WH 2008
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March 12, 2007
Hagel Not Running... For Now
Explaining that he wanted to keep his "focus on helping find a responsible way out of" the "tragedy" in Iraq, Sen. Chuck Hagel announced he would not join the Republican slate of White House hopefuls. However, the two-term senior senator from Nebraska seemed to leave the door open to running, adding that he and his family would "make a decision on my political future later this year."
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Posted at 11:05 AM
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Chuck Hagel, Republicans, WH 2008
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Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, an outspoken Republican critic of the Iraq war and the Bush administration, will say whether he will run for president in 2008 at 11 a.m. EDT today. Former Sen. David Karnes, R-Neb., who "has known Hagel for years," told Omaha's 
