For everyone riding on the Chuck Hagel bandwagon

[burythehatchet]

http://www.bestoftheblogs.com/2003_02_05_bestof.html#90279110

Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Chuck's Ball, Chuck's Game

Everybody loves a good conspiracy theory and the revelation that Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel once ran and is still a major stockholder in the company that owns the company that counted 85 percent of the votes cast in his very own 2002 and 1996 election races is a potential doozy. His 1996 victory, some will recall, was considered one of the biggest upsets of that election; he was the first Republican in 24 years to win a Nebraska senatorial campaign.

On January 29, The Hill reported that Hagel had reported a financial stake worth $1 million to $5 million in the McCarthy Group Inc., a private merchant banking company based in Omaha. But he did not report the company’s underlying assets, choosing instead to cite his holdings as an “excepted investment fund,” and therefore exempt from detailed disclosure rules. As The Hill suggests, that claim is false or, at least was, until the Senate Ethics Committee's new staff director Robert Walker met with Hagel’s staff and changed the rules after The Hill began snooping around.

A major asset of the McCarthy Group (not listed by Senator Hagel in his disclosures) is the nation's largest vote counting firm Election Systems & Software (ES&S) . Hagel resigned as CEO of AIS in 1995 to run for the Senate. Following his election, he resigned as president of the parent company McCarthy & Company.

Today, the McCarthy Group is run by Michael McCarthy, who happens to be campaign treasurer for--you guessed it--Chuck Hagel. Hagel's financials list the McCarthy Group as an asset, with his investment valued at $1-$5 million.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

1. Not a good guy.

He's a corporatist and a cheater, and he ought to be in jail.

:thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:

[leveymg]

2. He's an effective GOP spokesman against The Surge.

That's probably why this story is getting wider play. Hagel's ties to ES&S have been referenced here at DU for years.

[burythehatchet]

3. Many here are aware of that

but with so many new members it's safe to say that many others were not aware.

[leveymg]

5. The "enemy of my enemy is my friend" paradigm doesn't hold up.

I agree that Hagel is not our friend. Good to see him ripping holes in the Administration effort to widen the war, though.

I believe that redemption is possible for just about anyone, but Chuck still has an awfully long way to go before any of us should get on his bandwagon.

[Booster]

4. Don't trust him as far as I could throw him.

[PATRICK]

6. Yet another gushy reaction

by nearly the same people who thought McCain was the right guy. What is their about GOP candidates who deign out of ambition to tell some people what they want to hear because the elite kingmakers passed them over?

Suddenly they are noble heroes of conscience and like the lost sheep, some who trash excellent Dem candidates start cutting enough slack to hang half the globe. What a wonderful President he would be. That kind of slop got us Reagan and Bush I. Just in case the previous great manly hope McCain hasn't revealed enough of his true character in order to woo the kingmakers, this time let's look hard at Hagel on his own merits.

On one issue, like a sincere vet, he has questioned the brutally stupid conduct of the war. In all other despicable Bush crimes, agendas, goals and in the end goals of the neocon ME plan has he shown anything at all to merit such sentimental blindness? Is he the GOP Kucinich, Kerry, Gore? Is this huge benefit of the doubt at all sensible considering the "slight" possibility it is all about positioning for the presidential nomination, should the Bush/McCain "surge" get flushed?

The search for Messiahs almost always centers on second best because such a search is often conducted by second best minds, second best feelings, second best judgment and second best command of truth. A rescuer with a broom to sweep things under someone else's carpet and make us feel good about our second best situation- letting the crimes now institutionalized slip into the ominous future, a new era of confidence in shams that will destroy us, abandoning once more the poor and those in need. Centrism in its timid mediocrity needs a sentimental messiah and the murky myths that are all the better in a candidate with all the depth of a puddle in the Mohave at high noon. The candidate speaks to the judgment of the supporter, the strength of a base, and fear of full responsibility. So called centrist candidates seek enthusiasm for the least trouble, the fewest convictions, the least justice and slow progress with more respect for the profit for the top marketplace than any human value.

The real state of the GOP, compared even to past troubles, has very little room for real rebellion or restoration of anything in any part of the ideological spectrum, simply because ALL have been corrupted in deference to their monarch incompetent. You have the lick-spittle candidates wooing the hijackers who everyone begins to despise, one true Libertarian(Paul) who will be excluded, and a clique who think to find refuge of surface rebellion to certain issues in a narrow frame. None can get a base or get on base. There is only the anointment by the leaders most of the nation despises who daily cut down the party's chances to less than nil. Though many are switching their votes to actually serve people instead of billionaires it is very late to try to unseat the self-entitled stranglehold the Bushes have on the party organization and the Bushes themselves are in a quandary. Instead of grass roots they have minority nut roots and tuber tendrils that disgust the regal party rulers. In their lack of love for any base they have long ago abandoned the vast majority hardly bothering to make real efforts to trick them. Only lackluster hate messages and lies, reflexive, exposed, and lackluster gifts to their base drift along the doldrums of their "new majority".

So, we see a spark and imagine a bonfire, a brotherhood of patriotism in service to democracy, a "post-partisan" fawning over the void as the spark is fanned by loony tunes media. Let Hagel or anyone of those few and limited have what they can salvage of their party- if they can- and most of the time they do not dare or care to. No one in the party or media dares even raise the specter of a good GOPer challenging his rightful lord and master. Therefore the dogs wait for the Chimperor to weaken- if it were possible for him to be any worse than he always was. As stand alone votes their participation in just causes is appreciated, but even contemplating any "good" Republican clogging the mired and stained office of the presidency midst several burgeoning crises they never intend to meet properly is utterly repellent.

[burythehatchet]

9. Wish I could recommend a post

You have a keen sense of history and I concur with every word in your post. Thank you for the thoughtful essay.

[PATRICK]

7. Repeat post, please delete

[PATRICK]

8. Repeat post please delete