Backroom Battles (Mother Jones on Hackett)

[greenohio]

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.

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

[x-g.o.p.er]

1. Careful....

That topic is taboo around here tonight...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2466814&mesg_id=2466814

I hope your flame-retardant suit is on and ready for action.

[greenohio]

2. I didn't look in politics discussion.

This was the lastest article I had read on it and it appeared to have some new interesting details.

[Kagemusha]

3. My two cents...

The damning thing in this article is Reid calling Hackett about these photos as if Reid's assumption was that they might be true and Hackett might be a *war criminal* and Reid had to be doubly sure that Hackett was not a *war criminal* to protect the party. And speaking of protecting the party, the subtext of this is pretty clear: Paul, if these are the things that are going to come out about you late in the primaries or during the election itself, maybe you should save the party a lot of trouble and bow out. We don't want allegations that we have *war criminals* on the ballot.

To even consider for a moment that this might be true and calling Hackett about it with an open mind that he might well and truly be a *war criminal* speaks very poorly for the prospects of any "Fighting Dem" now and in the future. After all, anyone who's served can be assaulted with such charges, simply for wearing the uniform and being in a war zone. (Hackett was a civil affairs officer, last I heard. Civil affairs!) Since there's 'fog of war' we don't know if medals are justified, if people committed war crimes... they could have, right? They were in bad places with guns. They could be tainted. And hey, not serving never hurt a Republican. So why go through all the trouble of a bunch of amateur politicians calling themselves veterans when you have safe, viable alternatives?

Reid finding the charge credulous speaks volumes to me.

[Adelante]

6. Hackett called Schumer and told him about the rumors himself

I don't see anything wrong with Reid calling Hackett. Reid's office in fact verified there was nothing disturbing about the photos. Hackett has said several times this week that Harry Reid has been nothing but great to him. Why don't you believe Hackett about Reid? Hackett has been very clear on who he blames for his troubles, Chuck Schumer and Sherrod Brown, and not Harry Reid.

[greenohio]

4. I don't know what all went down.

The whole thing just plain looks bad.

[Kagemusha]

5. Yeah, it does look bad. But will burying this really help?

Will acting like we should have an Official Political Secrets Act where we never discuss the matter really help politically in the long run? I say that because of the thread locking and so on, and because as I point out in my above post, this isn't so much about Hackett as the viability of ANY veteran running for Congress or for the Senate on a Democratic Party ticket. Because I cannot think of ANY veteran who cannot have his or her military service smeared. If the party's afraid of such scenarios, and of the damage "amateurs" can do to the party, how is any "Fighting Dem" gonna cut it?

[greenohio]

7. I know. Apparently the powers that be don't like this topic.

They know what they are doing.