Backroom Battles (on Hackett and the Dem elites and Swiftboating)

[NVMojo]

this whole thing reminds me of the Kerry campaign in Nevada and the Swiftboating of him by the gold mining industry. I always wondered what Reid had to do with that when his son-in-law is a lead attorney with the National mining industry ...hmmmmm.

February 16, 2006

Democratic Senate candidate and Marine Corps Major Paul Hackett is accustomed to waging quixotic battles and taking his hits. He just didn’t expect the lowest—and fatal—blows to come from his own party.

In an announcement that stunned many in Washington and even some in his campaign staff, Hackett declared on February 13, 2006, that he was dropping his bid for U.S. Senate in Ohio, ending his 11 month political career. “I made this decision reluctantly, only after repeated requests by party leaders, as well as behind the scenes machinations, that were intended to hurt my campaign,” he said, only hinting at what had gone down behind the scenes. The day after his withdrawal from the race, he told me about the backroom battles that forced him out.

snip...

Swift boats soon appeared on the horizon. A whisper campaign started: Hackett committed war crimes in Iraq—and there were photos. “The first rumor that I heard was probably a month and a half ago,” Dave Lane, chair of the Clermont County Democratic Party, told me the day after Hackett pulled out of the race. “I heard it more than once that someone was distributing photos of Paul in Iraq with Iraqi war casualties with captions or suggestions that Paul had committed some sort of atrocities. Who did it? I have no idea. It sounds like a Republican M.O. to me, but I have no proof of that. But if it was someone on my side of the fence, I have a real problem with that. I have a hard time believing that a Democrat would do that to another Democrat.”

In late November, Hackett got a call from Sen. Harry Reid. “I hear there’s a photo of you mistreating bodies in Iraq. Is it true?” demanded the Senate minority leader. “No sir,” replied Hackett. To drive home his point, Hackett traveled to Washington to show Reid’s staff the photo in question. Hackett declined to send me the photo, but he insists that it shows another Marine—not Hackett—unloading a sealed body bag from a truck. “There was nothing disrespectful or unprofessional,” he insists. “That was a photo of a Marine doing his job. If you don’t like what they’re doing, don’t send Marines into war.”

A staffer in Reid’s office confirmed that Hackett had showed them several photos. “The ones I saw were part of a diary he kept while serving in Iraq and were in no way compromising. The one picture in question depicted marines doing their work on what looked like a scorching day in Iraq,” said the aide.

more...

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2006/02/hackett_drops_out.html

[MercutioATC]

1. Amazing piece.

Mother Jones does seem to be biased in favor of Hackett, but I'd like to see any contrarian dispute this piece.

I'm just really sad for my party.

[Name removed]

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