I have been blogging the ins and out of the Ohio Senate race from the beginning at
The buckeye Senate Blog. About a month ago I began getting tips that Paul Hackett was being smeared. I didn't write about it at the time because frankly I didn't know what to do about it.
Motherjones has the story, and its sordid
You may have problems getting to the link, I think it has been slash dotted
But first, the Democrats had to get Hackett out of the way. The weapons used in the rubout included economic sabotage, whisper campaigns, and threats.
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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."
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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."
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Brown campaign spokesperson Joanna Kuebler declined to respond to the rumors. She offered this prepared statement: "This campaign has never been about Paul Hackett or about Sherrod Brown. This campaign is about the hard working people of Ohio, and what Republican corruption has done to them."
People are now beginning to come out of the woodwork and talking about this. The insiders know who did it, and if their bosses have any sense at all they would be cashiered out of politics for the rest of their lives.
Needless to say I am disgusted and ashamed. We put forward these men, these Band of Brothers and treat the no better than the GOP.