Posted on 03/15/2007 7:12:40 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
Take a look at the pic above of Senator Chuck Hagel at his press conference last Monday. Gone is his normal know-it-all shmuck demeanor to be replaced by a sad looking bleary-eyed soul who announced in a hesitant voice that he hasn't made his mind up yet whether he will run for President. To get the full effect of the astonishing change in Hagel, one needs to watch the VIDEO of his non-announcement. His whole body language speaks of utter defeat. So what happened? Some in the press have speculated that Hagel is such an incredible egomaniac that he actually suckered the national media into flying out to Nebraska to cover his non-announcement. Although I agree that Hagel suffers from a high degree of megalomania, I don't think he is that self-destructive as to alienate the press. My guess is that something happened to Hagel the night before the non-announcement. Possibly Hagel fully intended to announce for President and to fortify himself he had a drink. Then another drink. And before long he looked like he went on a bender at Bukowski's. The catalyst for hitting the sauce so hard and giving himself Bolsevik Red bloodshot eyes the next day might have been his sudden realization that the surge in Iraq is WORKING. See, Hagel's whole contention is that there is no way there can be victory in Iraq but with the surge working, Hagel might have realized that he will look like a complete laughingstock if he runs now as a pull out of Iraq candidate only to have events undermine his campaign later. Okay, this is only speculation on my part but I do know that SOMETHING happened to Hagel the night before his non-annoucement. Perhaps we shall have to wait for future history books to give us the answer on this. Meanwhile the DUmmies have also noticed the shocking change in Hagel as you can see in this THREAD titled, "As one who's watched Hagel closely for many years - Today was just TOO weird." So let us now watch the DUmmies attempt to guess what happened to Hagel when he woke up from his Lost Weekend in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, prescribing several packets of Stanback for poor Chuck, is in the [brackets]:
As one who's watched Hagel closely for many years - Today was just TOO weird.
[Gone was Chuck's arrogant shmuck demeanor to be replaced by the sad face of a deflated loser.]
I've been watching the reruns on the various cable shows, and the Hagel I see looks like he's been taken through the wringer. Very unusual, since Hagel ALWAYS appears confident, STEADY, fresh and telegenic EVERY TIME I have seen him on tv for at least ten years now.
[Know-it-all Chuck didn't even know if he will be running for President or not.]
Even when I disagree with the guy 100%, I still had to acknowledge that he comes off GREAT on camera.
[Chuck comes off as a shmuck.]
Hagel almost never relies on notes when he's in front of cameras.
[The Chuck I saw at the non-annoucement looked like he couldn't even read notes.]
This Hagel I see on these clips looks like he's had a lost weekend.
[Maybe he saw bats flying out of the White House attacking him during his Lost Weekend.]
Something had to have happened.
[A Bukowski's Binge. And now on to the other DUmmie speculation about Chuck's Lost Weekend...]
THE Feebees and NSA have been spying on their perceived domestic enemas for years now. Hagel qualified the instant he went off the reservation. Wanna bet they have dirt on him that even he didn't know?
[Maybe they found out that Chuck was bi-curious.]
I heard someone on MSNBC dissing his messy hair. And you're right; he's usually so put together.
[Correct. Hagel is normally very fussy about his hair and in his non-announcement he looked like he combed it with the back of his hand.]
death threat from bushCo?
[It took you this long to guess that? Usually stuff like that is at the very beginning of the DUmmie threads.]
Just watched a fascinating interview with his brother on Hardball, with David Gregory thankfully subbing for tweety (he must be refilling his truckload of mood-altering meds). What I got most of it is that Tom is a Democrat, would not vote for a Republican even if it was his brother, that Chuck took years but finally came around and now realizes Vietnam was a mistake....and that he would get chewed up by the repug campaign leadership because Chuck is a straight talker and speaks the truth (his version, anyway).
[So when Chuck woke up from his Lost Weekend he suddenly realized what is already obvious to all: he's a Democrat.]
He's Been Shown The Contents Of His NSA File. He knows they know "everything" are going to use it unless he does what they say.
[They know "everything" that's on Chuck's bar bill.]
Something happened this weekend. You don't hype up an announcement all weekend, just to say you'll make a decision later in the year. Someone got to him.
[The name of the culprit was Jack Daniels.]
If he went public about being "gotten to" people would believe him. The Libby trial is still fresh in our minds -- come on, Chuck, tell us the truth!!! If they got to you, LET US KNOW!!!
["Okay, okay! I lied! It wasn't Jack Daniels that got to me! It was Jim Beam!"]
Don't care much for him but I noticed during his speech today he was faltering not saying much of any significance and it was strange. I don't anticipate he will announce, and yes, they probably got something on him and he was put on notice over the weekend.
[You say it was strange and I say it was borracho.]
Hagel looked like he had been water-boarded... ...blood-shot eyes, disheveled. And then he read that statement, word for word, like someone in a hostage tape. This guy was got to.
[Chuck Hagel was water-boarded in a tank of single malt scotch.]
They made him an offer, he couldn't refuse....
[2 for 1 happy hour Margaritas.]
Hagel looked like CRAP. As someone who always noticed Hagel's appearance almost every time he's made one the last ten years, I think I am qualified to notice the very first time he appears sloppy and dependent on his notes - two unusual characteristics right off the bat.
[Also being unable to walk a straight line and touch his nose with his fingers was another dead giveaway that something was wrong.]
NOBODY loves a camera more than Chuckie (and usually, it loves him back!).
[Which Chuckie? Hagel or the other Chuck the Shmuck?]
There must have been a background story. Blackmailed by the Bush family? Remember, Ross Perot still says Bush operatives threatened his daughter. In any event, it wasn't the Chuck Hagel of confidence speaking today with his head down reading his speech line by line.
[Maybe Perot's crazy aunt in the attic told Chuck not to run.]
has he been to a Russian run sushi bar lately?
[No but he's been to an Irish run tushi bar lately.]
It isn't really a question of if they got to Hagel but how....Roughing up courtesy of their goons? Envelope containing compromising photos or other embarrassing information? Threats to family members? These guys don't fool around. Hagel is gaining firsthand knowledge of what it means to be an enemy of a crime family.
[Obviously Hagel isn't an enemy of a bootlegging crime family.]
Oh Jesus, reading all your comments I'm starting to pick up a paranoid feeling too
[That pretty much happens whenever you read anything posted in DUmmieland.]
It could be worse.
Well now, don't be too hard on Charles Hagel.
Remember, other than his Vietnam-era thinking about the war in Iraq, Charles Hagel is consistently ranked as the most conservative U.S. Senator. If Iraq weren't an issue, I'm sure most here would be enthusiastic boosters of my fellow Nebraskan.
However, Iraq is an issue.
This is what I think happened:
For about a year, once in a while there would be a whole slew of "letters to the editor" in the state newspapers, in which Hagel was fulsomely praised for his "statesmanship," his maverickness, his non-partisanship (sic), and that Nebraska and Nebraskans should be proud of him.
However, occasional Google seaches of these letter-writers betrayed that they tended to be, uh, Democrats who had never voted for Hagel, and never had any intention to vote for Hagel.
On the other hand, the past three months, the "letters to the editor" in Nebraska newspapers have been jampacked with criticism of Hagel (100% of it being his Vietnam-era thinking about Iraq, and no other issue)--letter-writers who have voted for Hagel in the past, and who really wish to do so again, but he has to do something about his archaic Vietnam-era way of thinking first.
I think Charles Hagel is reading these letters, and they are affecting him.
Myself, as long as Hagel has that (R) at the end of his name, Hagel has my unqualified support and enthusiasm despite this serious chasm regarding Iraq.
But that's just me; other Nebraskans, and other Republicans here, don't think the way I do. I think Hagel realizes he has some serious fence-mending to do.
I think he's just going to run for re-election to the Senate in 2008; he won the last race with 87% of the vote (open honest election, no "machine politics" here in Nebraska), and if he does some serious fence-mending, he could do it again.
A more plausible explanation is that a little birdie told him what really happened to Vince Foster.
That story never made sense: Ross Perot is probably three or four times richer than the Bush family. Perot could afford to hire the Army of most any of the world's nations to protect his daughter.
Picture the scene: The senator wakes up in a brothel next to a dead hooker. In walks James Carvel...
I think Chuck was shaving that morning, looked and the mirror, had a moment of clarity and muttered...
"What the f*** was I thinking?"
That "whatever-it-is" in the pic does not even have any SHOULDERS, for Pete's sake. I've never seen anyone so slope-shouldered, male or female. Maybe that's part of why it's so vicious.
I never heard that story, what did Ross ever say about it?
As I recall, he quit campaigning in the 1992 presidential campaign claiming that his daughter had received threats around her wedding. It didn't make sense to me because since he was a presidential candidate he would have the Secret Service protection. If he didn't feel that was enough, he could easily have hired his own security force on the scale of the Bolivian army.
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