Chuck Hagel: A Cowardly Lion's "Profile in Courage"

Instapundit quotes Mickey Kaus this morning on the "bravery" of Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, whom, as we recall, voted for the Iraq War before he came out against it:

Why, exactly, is Sen. Chuck Hagel showing "courage" in conspicuously denouncing the Iraq War now that virtually the entire American establishment has reached that same conclusion--now that Hagel is virtually assured of getting hero treatment from Brian Williams and Tim Russert and long favorable profiles in the newsweeklies?

We, of course, don't bother to listen to "virtually the entire American establishment" since that "establishment" consists exclusively of wealthy leftists who are always wrong. But back to our main point: Mickey continues below, answering his own question somewhat while posing another:

OK, maybe Hagel's not so courageous. Maybe he's just right. Except that he chose, as the moment to make his flamboyant speech, not the vote on the imprudent war itself--he voted for it--but a vote to withdraw support for a last-ditch surge strategy that even the NYT's estimable, on-the-scene pessimist Sabrina Tavernese thinks "may have a chance to work." Was this the right time--it certainly wasn't the courageous time--for a speech like Hagel's? Was he serving the nation or himself?

Again, we don't exactly agree with Mickey's insinuations on just who is "right" here. (This observation has more than a faint odor of the current MSM and Democrat memes.) But you do know the obvious answer to the rhetorical question he poses. And the rest of his remarks on this latest political poseur looking wistfully toward 2008 are pretty good.

To HazZzMat, Hagel looks less like a Profile in Courage than he does like the Cowardly Lion in the film The Wizard of Oz, always willing to put up a good, manly front if only someone like the Scarecrow (John Kerry?) will go first. When Wonk served in the Merchant Marine, the sailors would call that "talking a good fight."

Hagel is merely the latest nominal Republican to become sick and tired, not to mention envious, of the lefties who routinely get the MSM's undivided attention and admiration. Eventually, such Repubs decide to throw overboard any political convictions they might have had in order to grab a little media adulation themselves. Once they've pulled this phony "courage" act, they find they can bask, however briefly, in the MSM's "strange new respect" for a guy they hated just last week. (And maybe gain a tenth of a percent in the polls.)

Instapundit describes this flavor of faux-manliness a bit more pungently:

"Courage" consists of saying what the media want you to say.