"First as Tragedy, then as Farce..." Oh! ...Hagel not Hegel!

ck Hagel, had the unusual honesty to rightfully disparage AIPAC and the whole Israel-first lobby, saying "I'm a senator of the United States, not Israel."

AIPAC and it's puppet legislators and media shills tolerate no criticism of Israel and themselves of any kind, so it's somewhat amazing that Hagel is even up for consideration. Enter supposedly-progressive firebrand Rachel Maddow. Of course, she's really just another Democratic Party hack and defender Israel's ethnic cleansing and war crimes (as well as Obama's bipartisan rule-the-world-via permanent warfare policy). BUT, she's too much of a moral coward to admit it, so she makes an on-air denouncement of Hagel as unfit to be Secretary of Defense because he made a homophobic remark 14 years ago. --RC

Maddow slams Hagel, to neocon applause
Dec 22, 2012 01:21 pm | Philip Weiss

The war against Chuck Hagel to be Defense Secretary continues. Rachel Maddow concludes this short segment, "Sorry, Charlie" on Chuck Hagel's homophobic comment of 14 years ago with the statement, "I do not know if President Obama wants to nominate Chuck Hagel or not. But if he is, so far it's not going all that well."

Hagel has apologized for the statement.

"My comments 14 years ago in 1998 were insensitive," he said, NBC News reported. "They do not reflect my views or the totality of my public record, and I apologize to Ambassador Hormel and any LGBT Americans who may question my commitment to their civil rights.”

But Maddow picked up a Washington Post item saying that the object of the 1998 slur, James Hormel, does not accept Hagel's apology.

Notes a friend: Dan Senor is retweeting the criticism of Hagel. This gives the lobby the cover they need. Remember after they sank Chas Freeman they claimed it was all about China and Saudi Arabia. They need a smokescreen to say it wasn't all about Israel.

Andrew Sullivan has characterized this as a "classic" underhanded smear campaign, and pointed out that Hagel voted in 2006 to oppose a ban on same-sex marriage:

A secretary of defense nominee should not be disqualified because he said something retrograde on a non-defense issue fifteen years ago. In the most dangerous scenario gay activists have faced - a potential constitutional amendment to consign us permanently to second class status - Hagel voted no.