Proving the presidential merry-go-round really shuts down, Washington Post eminence Robert Kaiser has turned to touting Sen. Chuck Hagel as a serious candidate for president in 2008. You mean, of the Republican variety? The man who regularly appears on morning TV to bash President Bush’s war, echoing Joe Biden on the other side of the split screen? Kaiser seems to think this paragraph, for example, will help Hagel’s run:

Hagel, 58, is not your standard-issue politician. He is outspoken, does his own reading, thinking and even writing, and has the capacity to charm Nebraskans, foreigners, even Democrats. Richard Fellman, a liberal Democrat and professor at Hagel’s alma mater, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, calls Hagel “the best Republican senator this state has had since George Norris,” Nebraska’s one certifiable political giant, who supported both Roosevelts and the New Deal.