To the surprise of virtually no one, mercenary rentboy Lanny Davis has been retained in the war (Jewhad?) 0n Chuck Hagel:

I believe a president — Republican or Democrat — almost always deserves to have the Cabinet that he wishes, with the bar very, very high to oppose his choice. Thus, there should be heavy presumption that President Obama’s reported nominee for secretary of Defense, former Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, should be confirmed by the Senate.

Whether senators agree or disagree with Hagel’s past positions — on the Iraq war (against), declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a “terrorist organization” (against), engaging with Iran in negotiations more aggressively (for), engaging with Hamas in seeking a peace agreement in the Middle East (for) — these positions are known to the president, and he still has decided to nominate Hagel for the post.

Wait for it…here it comes:

But: Hagel owes it to all Americans, not just to American Jews, to do more than apologize for use of the expression “Jewish lobby” in communicating his concern about its power.

He must understand, first, that there is a difference between Jews who support Israel and the “Israel lobby.”

To suggest that there is a “Jewish lobby” is not only inaccurate, it is highly offensive to the American Jewish community.

I’m so old , I remember when a couple of other guys who used the term “Israel Lobby” and they got buried:

Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government is removing its logo from a paper about the “Israel lobby” that was co-authored by its academic dean.

The new version of the paper also has a more prominent disclaimer warning that the paper’s views belong only to its authors.

The changes appear to be a sign that the university is distancing itself from the document in the face of a furor from faculty members, Jewish leaders, and a congressman who say it fails to meet academic standards and promotes anti-Semitic myths.

The paper, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” was written by the Kennedy School’s Stephen Walt and a political science professor and the codirector of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, John Mearsheimer, and published by the Kennedy School.

[...]

It also has drawn sharp criticism from prominent Harvard faculty, including Kennedy School lecturer Marvin Kalb, literature professor Ruth Wisse, and law professor Alan Dershowitz; Harvard students, and Rep. Eliot Engel, a Democrat of New York. Many critics have called for Harvard to withdraw the paper until it can be brought up to acceptable standards of scholarship, alleging that the document is riddled with factual inaccuracies and suffers from bias and faulty research.

Against this backdrop, the Walt-Mearsheimer paper – which had been published online at the Kennedy School’s Web site – underwent a makeover yesterday that downplayed ties between its contents, its authors, Harvard, and the University of Chicago.

As initially published, the top of the cover page bears the logo and name of Harvard and the Kennedy School, and identifies the paper as part of a “Faculty Research Working Papers Series.”

In the revised version currently on the Web site, the cover page is stripped of the Harvard and Kennedy School imprimatur, and the paper is identified as a “Working Paper,” without any mention of a “faculty” affiliation.

Walt and Mearshimer later expanded upon their paper, expanding it into a 500-page book which addressed the issues brought up by their critics, but by that time it was too late as they were permanently branded as anti-semites which is how the AIPAC/ADL puke funnel works.

…and now, with a helpful assist from Jennifer Rubin and Bill Kristol with his little band of fratboys at the Free Bacon, Chuck Hagel is soaking in it.