Robert Novak has a brief discussion of Senator Hagel in his piece from yesterday.

Friends of Sen. Chuck Hagel, the Senate's sharpest critic of President Bush's Iraq policy, say there is no chance he will endorse a Democrat for president this year.

That does not mean, however, that Hagel necessarily will back the Republican candidate, his friend John McCain. That could depend on whether McCain devises an Iraq exit strategy. Hagel and McCain, who occupy offices in the same second floor corridor of the Russell Senate Office Building, have been spotted conferring on two recent occasions.

A footnote: Although the conservative Hagel is an unlikely running mate for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, he conceivably could end up as secretary of defense for either Democrat.