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Kevin Lamarque / Reuters file
Former U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, shown here testifying, during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to be Defense Secretary. A reporter says a joke he made sparked a false rumor that Hagel accepted speech money from a group called Friends of Hamas.
A Washington reporter revealed Wednesday that a joking comment he made to a congressional aide unwittingly sparked a false rumor that Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel accepted money from a group called Friends of Hamas for a speech.
Dan Friedman, who works for the New York Daily News, said he could not have imagined that his attempt at humor would fuel a claim that would spread across the Internet and “could have doomed” Hagel’s chances.
In a column on the paper’s op-ed pages, Friedman detailed how he was looking into allegations that Hagel was hostile to Israel when he called the anonymous Republican aide on Feb. 6 and posed a question: Had Hagel given paid speeches to any questionable groups like “Junior League of Hezbollah in France” or “Friends of Hamas?”
He said he followed up with an email reminder of the type of detail he was looking for: “Did he get $25K speaking fee from Friends of Hamas?”
“The names were so over-the-top, so linked to terrorism in the Middle East that it was clear I was talking hypothetically and hyperbolically,” the reporter wrote.
The aide, however, apparently didn’t get the joke. By Friedman’s account, his source mentioned the query to colleagues and the information somehow ended up with Ben Shapiro, who authored a Feb. 7 post on the conservative site Breitbart.com with the headline: “Secret Hagel Donor? White House spox ducks question on ‘Friends of Hamas.’
The item was picked up by other conservative media, but Friedman said he didn’t get wind of the growing rumor until Sunday when he saw a story questioning whether an organization called Friends of Hamas even exists.
He said that when he called Shapiro, he said his story was accurate because he was told Hagel had not turned over documents on overseas money he received because a group purportedly called Friends of Hamas was on the list – regardless of whether that information was accurate.
In a post Wednesday, Shapiro blasted Friedman and denied that it was Friedman’s inquiry that sparked his story.
“Our Senate source denies that Friedman is the source of this information,” he wrote. He quoted the source as saying, “I have received this information from three separate sources, none of whom was Friedman.”
He said Hagel could settle the question of whether Friends of Hamas is real by releasing his records.
Democrats have scheduled a vote on Hagel’s nomination – which was delayed by a Republican filibuster last week – for Feb. 26.
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How does one prove a negative? How does one "turn over documents" which do not exist, in order to prove that one has no association with an entity which does not exist? This is like a political corollary to the absurdity in the novel "Catch 22."
But the level of absurdity in American politics is even worse; it is astonishing! And the willingness to practice the politics of empty accusation and personal destruction is dishonorable in the extreme.
But hey, we elect these scoundrels. We only get the government we deserve!
I've seen comments from multiple sources about how "smart" Teapublican Senator Ted Cruz is supposed to be and yet this is what he's basing pretty much his entire line of reasoning for voting against Hagel and holding up the nomination process.
I guess some people have a different smart than I do.
Robert: I do not believe that Hagel has said that some reguested documents surrounding his prior writings or speeches do not exist. In fact, I believe that he has admitted that some such documents do exist but, nonetheless, refuses to turn them over, with the Administrations backing, as "irrelevant". If true, turn them over -- what's the harm.
I have never seen any cabinet post nominee have to hand over their financial records. It's ridiculous. I don't recall any of these rightwing nuts demanding that Romney turn over his taxes; do you? It's none of their business. They are just fishing.
Gil-2872519
Gil, believe whatever you wish to believe. But did you even read the news story before deciding what you believe, or do you simply believe whatever your political affiliations, and FoxNews tell you that you should believe; and facts be damned?
Sen. Hagel is an honorable man, one of few in recent years in the Chambers of the US Congress who repeatedly demonstrated that he placed being an American far ahead of being a Republican, or a Democrat.
The allegation that former Sen. Hagel had received remuneration from a group -- which does not exist -- was sparked by a joke which then became a rumor and finally became these allegations. The originator of the joke has admitted he made it up.
What we should all be asking how an elected member of the US Congress can be so immature and delusional as to take a rumor and run with it, and use it to defame the good name of a former member of the US Senate, and distinguished American and veteran. This is absolutely despicable treatment of this man.
Sen. Hagel cannot produce documents of remuneration which was not received from a group which does not exist. Even a guy who's best friend is a six-foot-tall rabbit could see the illogic in this demand!
And how can someone in elected office allege another person's affiliation with a group, if he cannot even show that the group really exists, except in the context of the joke told by a reporter to a Congressional aid, ... and do it without bringing scorn and derision upon himself, even from those in his own party. THIS is how foul our American politics has become. Empty accusations are satisfactory. No merit to those accusations is necessary, nor expected.
Get serious, man. And while you are at it, ... WE DEMAND that YOU produce documents immediately showing the nature of your real affiliations with, and remunerations received from the "JIMMY CARTER and CAROL CHANNING ARE REALLY the SAME PERSON, SOCIETY" (the JCCCARSP, S), ...and until you do so .... "NO SOUP FOR YOU!"
PS. We also want you to produce your REAL birth certificate. Yes, that's right. The Kenyan one you're hiding. We'll wait.
Tyson sues Live Nation over alleged embezzlement
hey I never liked his cheap ass hamburger cooker anyway.
Well there you go, warren. You should have gone with a George Foreman cooker, like everyone else.
PS. I would have thought the Tyson cooker would be for chicken?
Cheers! ;-)
Gawd how did this escape Fox Snooze???? Or did it?? ROFL! Republicans just get sillier and more irrelevant daily. Which is great news for the country. ROFLMAO!
If you can't win on your ideas (or lack thereof) and behavior, you resort to slander and lies in order to destroy a person's character. That is a skill that Republicans have developed to a fine art. The problem in this case is that they ask a question knowing that there is no way to provide an answer. And, they are in the process of attacking a Vietnam Veteran and former Senator who did not bow down to the Republican masters and was honest and forthright regarding national and international issues. Tyrants want to punish him to push their own petty political agendas. How shameful for ordinary people. But these folks have no shame.
Agree totally. An honest man in D.C. will be run out of town on a rail.
Breitbart.com is a joke. This goes to show they will post anything they hear from anyone, without the least bit of fact checking. They pretend to be journalists, but they are nothing more then a political National Inquirer. Sadder still are the idiot politicians who quote their ridiculous lies and rumors without doing their own fact checking.
Responsible congressmen would be nice.
Hey everyone, the GOP will get around to those jobs they said/promised us, as soon as they get all the witch hunts out of the way. Gotta get their priorities straight, don't cha know? And in the mean time, the GOP has their low informed base making all kinds of stories up, lying their bottoms off, using deflections that suck, and what every else they can think of to make it seem like the GOP has some smarts.
The only smarts the GOP really has, is that they are smarting from this last election. They LOST the election and that smarts for them. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
This is just another example of the blood thirsty rabid right.
Wonder where he will be working next?