Good Luck Senator Hagel and Thank You

http://www.libertypell.com/?p=2192

 

Amateur political aficionados are easily forgiven if they were unable to pick Senator Chuck Hagel out of a lineup before he was nominated by President Obama to be the Secretary of Defense. For most of his career, you either needed to be from Nebraska or far higher up the political junkie ladder to have had any idea who he was.
Whatever his contributions might have been, the most significant will likely relate to what has been done to him rather than what he accomplished. Likely, this will be true whether or not the Senate votes to confirm him for his Cabinet post.
In an interview for Aaron David Miller’s 2008 book “The Much Too Promised Land,” Hegel is quoted as saying, “The political reality is that… the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here. And… I have always argued against some of the dumb things they do because I don’t think it is in the interest of Israel, I just don’t think it is smart for Israel.”
These few lines actually contain two Washington high crimes and misdemeanors.
First, Hagel referred to the “Jewish lobby” rather than the preferred “Israel lobby.” The latter term is allegedly preferred because it is inclusive of non-Jewish Israel supporters. Some believe, however, that it does better in poll testing.
Second, what ever you call the lobby, it must never be said to be influential. This depends on your acceptance of the idea that there are sophisticated and wealthy contributors who don’t really care about whether their contributions are influential.
The punishment for either of these crimes, let alone both, ranges from many hours of intense grilling over multiple days by a panel of pontificators to a career ending character assassination – the equivalent of 10 years to life in criminal circles. The actual level of punishment is determined not by the severity of the offense, but by the political points to be scored by the executioners.
Senator Hagel is actually no stranger to this. When, from the other side of the dais, he was called upon to deal with the nomination of James Hormel as Ambassador to Luxembourg, Hagel said, “Ambassadorial posts… are representing our lifestyle, our values, our standards. And I think it is an inhibiting factor to be gay  — openly aggressively gay like Mr. Hormel — to do an effective job.”  Though he later apologized, we should still not be thinking of Senator Hagel as a victim because “that which ye disheth out, so shall ye receive.”