The "swiftboating" of Paul Hackett

I first heard of the "swiftboating" of Paul Hackett in his interview with Ed Schultz. Ohio 2nd commented:

FYI, the "swiftboating" whisper campaign story that Ed Schultz is talking about was known by many people, including the leadership in the DSCC and your humble editor for a while now. I have no knowledge of the origins of it. It is what it is.

Today at Ohio 2nd, I found the link this article in Mother Jones, Backroom Battles, which gives more details:

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.

But the whispering continued, and Hackett was troubled. "It creates doubt and suspicion," Hackett told me, saying his close supporters were asking him privately about the rumors. "It tarnishes my very strength as a candidate, my military service. It's like you take a handful of seeds, throw them up in the wind, and they blow all around and start growing. It really bothered me."

More discussion of this issue can be found at Ohio 2nd, where the blogger suggests that the person responsible for this needs an immediate (metaphorical) ass kicking for the good of the Democratic party. BuckeyeSenate also has a post about the swiftboating, and asks that anyone with firsthand information about the swiftboating email him in full confidence at staff at buckeyesenateblog.com.


And I do agree with floridagal's point in her recommended diary at Booman Tribune--indiscriminantly trashing the Democratic party as a whole is not the answer, and it hurts the people we purport to care about. But I also agree with the people who are mightily ticked off--even if it *was* Republicans responsible for the "swiftboating", people like Schumer have no business "clearing the field" and depriving the voters of a real choice. I know Oscar might think differently about that, but we agree with the bottom line that the grassroots need to "be so mobilized that we can fund and support whomever we want to run for these seats regardless of what the DSCC or DCCC want." Toward that end, you might want to check out the diary I wrote yesterday, crossposted here and here, as well as some of the comments that follow, to see if Subodh Chandra is a candidate you would like to put your support behind. Or, there's Christine Cegelis in Illinois. In her case, Rahm Emanuel recuited Iraq vet Tammy Duckworth to run against her. And finally, as I mentioned yesterday, Ned Lamont is officially announcing his intention to run against Joe Lieberman for his Senate seat in Connecticut.

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