Hagel Questions Palin's Qualifications

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has gotten in trouble with the GOP in the past and he's back in bad favor today for making the same mistake -- telling the truth.

Hagel, a highly-decorated Vietnam Veteran who is retiring from the Senate when his term ends this year, has broken with his party for years on remaining in Iraq and he did it again today when he said "it's a stretch" to consider Republican vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin qualified to be president.

"She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Hagel said in an interview published Thursday by the Omaha 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."

"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," Hagel said.

Hagel also ridiculed the silly Palin assertion that, among her foreign policy credentials, is the fact that she can see Russia from a small part of Alaska.

"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,'" he said. "That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."

You can read the rest here.