The Fat Lady is Singing...Republican Senator Chuck Hagel: Iraq growing more like Vietnam

Wow...as someone who remembers Vietnam and the war protests quite well, the parallels are becoming eerily familiar. I remember that just one Congressman standing up on the Congressional floor was the beginning of the end of our Vietnam presence. Per CNN:

Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska on Thursday said the United States is "getting more and more bogged down" in Iraq and stood by his comments that the White House is disconnected from reality and losing the war.

The longer U.S. forces remain in Iraq, he said, the more it begins to resemble the Vietnam war.

Hagel mocked Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion in June that the insurgency in Iraq was in its "last throes," saying the U.S. death toll has risen amid insurgent attacks.

"Maybe the vice president can explain the increase in casualties we're taking," the Nebraskan told CNN.

"If that's winning, then he's got a different definition of winning than I do."

Yes...you have it right. This is commentary from a Republican Senator from that well-known bastion of liberal extremism, Nebraska!

"The casualties we're taking, the billion dollars a week we're putting in there, the kind of commitment we've got -- we're not going to be able to sustain it," he said.

Iraq and Vietnam still have more differences than similarities, he said, but "there is a parallel emerging."

"The longer we stay in Iraq, the more similarities will start to develop, meaning essentially that we are getting more and more bogged down, taking more and more casualties, more and more heated dissension and debate in the United States," Hagel said.

That right there was enough to make me feel all warm and fuzzy, but no, he had to go and make me fall in love with him:

On another Iraq-related issue, Hagel said Bush made the wrong decision by not meeting again with Cindy Sheehan, a mother of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq who has camped outside the president's Texas ranch. (Full story)

Sheehan "deserves some consideration, and I think that should have been done right from the beginning," Hagel said, noting that Bush did meet with her shortly after her son's death last year.

"I think the wise course of action, the compassionate course of action, the better course of action would have been to immediately invite her in to the ranch. It should have been done when this whole thing started. Listen to her."

*SWOON*

Yes, this is one Republican Senator calling out the Administration...but we all know how significant that is in the "if you're not with me, you're against me" White House. Because it's following on the heels of a nationwide groundswell of support for Cindy Sheehan, it reflects a growing trickle of public protest and support.

It doesn't take long for a trickle to become a flood, ya'll.