Former Sen. Chuck Hagel: GOP is being ‘irresponsible’ in the health care debate.

Thinkprogress:

The Hill reports today that Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) criticized the Republican Party’s approach to the health care debate during a speech at the University of Michigan earlier this month. Hagel chided his former Republican colleagues for using the health care debate to “destroy the other party” rather than engage in thoughtful conversation; he also said that such an approach is “irresponsible”:

“If your attitude is wrong, if your intention is to use healthcare to destroy the other party, or to destroy the presidency of Barack Obama, then it’s very unlikely you’re going to find much consensus from people who want to use healthcare,” Hagel said earlier this month in a speech at the University of Michigan, video of which was only made available recently.

“As some Republican senators have said publicly — that if we kill Obama on this, and we destroy this, and we defeat his, that will drive a stake through his political heart on this administration,” the former senator, who retired at the end of his term in January, added. “I just find that about as irresponsible of a thing as I can think of.”