Update: Republican to McCain: You're Better Than This

           op-ed:Senator Chuck Hagel has been a reliable partner on the right and good friend to John McCain. Hagel, a Vietnam veteran like McCain, may lose a friend over his most recent comments. Earlier in the week he told McCain to quit talking about the surge and start talking about the future, and how to win the war. And now Hagel is asking McCain to get out of the gutter. Either Republicans are breaking with the brand name, or they are simple just trying to keep Rove type politics out of the election. However, McCain may see them as being traitors. Earlier this week it was announced that nearly thirteen Republican senators have announce they will not attend the national convention or have not responded to invitations. Most Republicans have split with McCain on ideology, but now they seem to be tiring of his political stunts.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb, this morning criticized two attacks his friend, fellow Republican, fellow Vietnam veteran and Senate Russell Building next-door neighbor Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., launched against Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, this week.

On CBS's Face the Nation this morning, host Bob Schieffer asked Hagel about McCain's claim that "Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a campaign."

"I think John is treading on some very thin ground here when he impugns motives and when we start to get into, 'You're less patriotic than me. I’m more patriotic,'" Hagel said. "I admire and respect John McCain very much. I have a good relationship. To this day we do. We talk often. I talked to him right before I went to Iraq, as a matter of fact. John’s better than that."

Schieffer also asked about McCain's new TV ad in which he says Obama in Europe "made time to go to the gym but canceled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras."

Hagel, who accompanied Obama on their official trip to Afghanistan and Iraq but broke off in Jordan, said, "the congressional delegation that you referred to ended when we parted in Jordan. At that point, it was a political trip for Senator Obama. I think it would have been inappropriate for him and certainly he would have been criticized by the McCain people and the press and probably should have been if on a political trip in Europe paid for by political funds - not the taxpayers -to go, essentially, then and be accused of using our wounded men and women as props for his campaign...I think it would be totally inappropriate for him on a campaign trip to go to a military hospital and use those soldiers as props. So I think he probably, based on what I know, he did the right thing."

Hagel said he wasn't sure about all the details of the controversy, but "we saw troops everywhere we went on the congressional delegation. We went out of our way to see those troops."

Hagel said of McCain's ad, "I do not think it was appropriate."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/republican-hage.html

In the released CBS interview, Democratic Senator Jack Reed, who has been to Iraq more times than Senator McCain, stated his displeasure with the McCain camp, especially their news smear ad on Obama.

"Senator Hagel, Senator Obama and I visited the combat support hospital in Baghdad to thank those nurses, those doctors, to see patients that were there, to bring a bit of greetings from home and profound thanks," he said. "That should be in the ad that Senator McCain is running.

"I think Senator Obama made a very wise choice [about Germany]. Any suggestion that a visit to a military hospital would be political, he made the wise choice not to go.

"But when we were in Baghdad, we made a point, at the end of a very exhausting day, to go in and see these magnificent young Americans and those doctors and nurses that give such tremendous care - without a lot of fanfare, just to say 'Thanks.'

"We went to Jalalabad to see the soldiers of the 173rd. We stopped in Basra to see our soldiers down there. We went into Anbar province to see soldiers there.

"That is a completely distorted and, I think, inappropriate advertisement."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/27/ftn/main4297769.shtml

What has been most shocking about McCain’s action is how quickly he stepped into the fray. After being smeared and slanted by Bush in 2000, McCain vowed to never participate in such dirty politics. In 2004 he stuck up for fellow Vietnam vet John Kerry, and called the Swift Boat Veterans ads disgusting. But now he employs the same man in the ad on his campaign. He constantly attacks Obama’s patriotism and support for U.S. servicemen. Perhaps McCain sees a political advantage in beating his chest and proclaiming super-duper patriotism. Perhaps personal attacks are that he has left. However, McCain fails to realize the importance of internet age, and not realizing Americans have “the google,” Youtube, and other media sources to check facts and videos. The “internets” may become McCain’s biggest political adversary. Personally, these attacks are great, as I have swayed two independents and one McCain voter to switch their vote to my candidate, Barack Obama.