A ‘Stretch’ To Call Palin Qualified, Says GOP Senator

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) recently pointed out that it’s a ‘stretch’ to claim that Palin has presidential qualifications in any form. A ‘Stretch’ To Call Palin Qualified, Says GOP SenatorBy Cliff Montgomery – Sept. 23rd, 2008Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) is someone rarely seen these days: A true maverick Republican lawmaker.In an Omaha World-Herald interview published on Sept. 18th, Hagel flatly stated that Sarah Palin, his party’s vice-presidential nominee, has zero foreign policy experience–and even pointed out that it’s a “stretch” to claim that Palin has presidential qualifications in any form.”She doesn’t have any foreign policy credentials,” Hagel told the World-Herald.”You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don’t know what you can say. You can’t say anything,” added the Nebraska senator, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee senior member and a vocal Bush Administration critic since Incurious George’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.Palin’s only foreign travel has been trips last year to Canada and Mexico, and a visit to soldiers in Germany and Kuwait, she admitted in her recent interview with ABC News. Palin also acknowledged that she’d never met a head of state from another country.”I do think in a world that is so complicated, so interconnected and so combustible, you really got to have some people in charge that have some sense of the bigger scope of the world,” Hagel stated. “I think that’s just a requirement.”Palin’s first meetings with top foreign representatives occurred today, just more than a month before Election Day in November. McCain spin doctors at first barred reporters from being present at these meetings, and only reversed their decision after protests from the journalists.The inexperienced GOP vice-presidential nominee today met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is in America for this week’s United Nations General Assembly meeting. Palin also is scheduled to meet with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe–also here for the U.N. meeting–and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.Though journalists were allowed into President Karzai’s hotel suite shortly before noon to see and to photograph Karzai talking to Palin about his family, “the media were escorted out after about 40 seconds,” according to The Associated Press.In a defense of her ‘foreign policy experience’, Palin recently told ABC News this gem:”They [Russians] are our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.”Hagel quickly tore apart that irrelevancy.”I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, ‘I look out my window and I see Russia, and so therefore I know something about Russia,’ ” Hagel told the World-Herald.”That kind of thing is insulting to the American people,” he properly added.Hagel also declared that Palin–former mayor of 6,500-strong Wasilla, Alaska, before becoming state governor in December 2006–simply isn’t ready to fight for the needs and demands of all Americans if something were to happen to GOP presidential nominee John McCain (R-AZ).”I think it’s a stretch to, in any way, to say that she’s got the experience to be president of the United States,” stated Hagel.In July, Hagel visited Afghanistan and Iraq with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama (D-IL). Though he says he didn’t expect Obama to ask him, Hagel told the paper he would have entertained an offer to serve as the Democratic nominee’s running mate.Like what you’re reading so far? Then why not order a full year (52 issues) of thee-newsletter for only $15? A major article covering an story not being told in the Corporate Press will be delivered to your email every Monday morning for a full year, for less than 30 cents an issue. Order Now!