Hagel will definitely make it an interesting race in 2008 ...

Hellfire, Chuck Hagel is my kind of Republican ... or at least was until I began to become so dag-nabbed liberal in recent years.

As most of you have heard over the past couple of days, Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, a two-term Nebraska senator (move over, Hillary!) and Vietnam War veteran (move over, John Kerry) who has been openly critical of the administration's strategy in Iraq (move over, John Edwards), will announce on Monday whether he plans to run for president in 2008.

One thing's for sure -- he won't be "sharing" the Republican votes in the Primaries with other Republican candidates who feel as he does that we should be out of the accidental (that's a gentler adjective than "treasonous") carnage in Iraq. And one poll showed him running only slightly behind Hillary and/or Obama in the general election.

But whatever, he's a real wild card on the Republican side and will surely gather substantial number of delegates in/during the Republican primaries ... putting more pressure on Mr. Bush to do what's right and get our youngsters out of Iraq ... like tomorrow!

Hopefully, he won't run as an Independent (hurts the Republicans in the general election and muddies the water), but insists on trying to turn the party around. Imagine a Republican candidate who called the buildup "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam" and who went on to say, that Bush was playing "a ping-pong game with American lives." Wow! Yippee!! As you recall, Hagel's comments drew fire and brimstone from [soon not to be] Vice President Dick Cheney.

"Let's say I believe firmly in Ronald Reagan's eleventh commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican," Cheney said in his Newsweek interview back in January. "But it's very hard sometimes to adhere to that where Chuck Hagel is involved."

Add to his lighting a fire under Scooter Libby's boss (referring, of course to Dick Cheney who is/was also George Bush's boss) the fact that he and John McCain are close friends going way back, and you have ... well, the fireworks will start in three days if he announces his plans to run as a Republican for the 2008 Presidential nomination.

I can surely imagine the Democrats coming up with a surprise nominee (not really, but Joe Lieberman comes to mind) that would have me gladly vote for Chuck Hagel for President.

You know, it might be early but the 2008 Presidential race it's almost as much fun following the candidates as following the exploits of Britney Spears, Anna Nicole Smith, Lisa Nowak (900 miles in a diaper), et. al.