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From the LA Times:
As former Sen. Chuck Hagel seeks to fend off critics aiming to derail his confirmation as Defense secretary, he has an incongruous ally: a Pittsburgh philanthropist who made his fortune as one of the world's top horse-race bettors.
Bill Benter, a prolific donor to Democrats and liberal groups who keeps a low public profile, financed an ad campaign by a group of centrist national security veterans who hailed Hagel's "bipartisanship and independence of conscience and mind."
A cluster of opaque groups, some of which recently sprang into existence, have run television ads blasting Hagel as weak on Israel and hostile to gays. His critics include some of the conservative advocacy organizations that fought vigorously against President Obama's reelection, such as the Iowa-based American Future Fund, whose donors remain a mystery.
Good grief. This spectacle is shaping up to be an intramural struggle between one group of billionaire Israel-firsters and another group of billionaire Israel-firsters who think the first group is insufficiently warmongering.
Somebody wake me when we actually have a discussion about what’s in the interest of the American nation.
2 comments:
"This spectacle is shaping up to be an intramural struggle between one group of billionaire Israel-firsters and another group of billionaire Israel-firsters who think the first group is insufficiently warmongering."
Added to this is Bill Kristol over at the Weekly Standard, who seems to have made it his personal mission that Mr. Hagel not be confirmed because he is insufficiently enamored of Israel.
To the unbiased observer, it sure seems to confirm a lot of the critiques about the power of the Israel lobby in the US.
EW: Well said. Frankly, given the priors (a Left-wing president and Democrat Senate) I don't know whether or not a Hagel defeat would would only give us someone worse.
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