Lobbyist Week, Day 1: Intro and Charles Black

John McCain has portrayed himself as an anti-special interest, anti-lobbyist reformer "maverick." Nonetheless, his campaign and senate office staff are chock-full of lobbyists. They've lobbied for dictators, human traffickers, and big corporations. Some of McCain’s lobbyist buddies have even represented clients whose interests were contrary to the national interests of the United States.

Media Matters, though hardly an objective source, has a nice chart of most of the lobbyists working on the McCain campaign and who they’ve lobbied for. This week I will tell you about some of the more, um, interesting advisors McCain chooses to surround himself with, with mainstream sources.

Charles Black: Chief Political Advisor. The advisor who hasn't resigned (yet).
If the name sounds familiar, it's because he was in the news last week after he told Fortune Magazine that another terrorist attack would be a "big advantage" to McCain's campaign. Big deal. Look at the list of foreign dictators with sketchy human rights records that this guy has lobbied for:

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, who looted his country during his reign and whose totalitarian regime was marked by human rights abuses.

Angolan Guerilla leader Jonas Savimbi, who brutally murdered and tortured civilians and planted land mines in his own country.

Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, who tortured and publicly executed political rivals, and pillaged his country's resources, enriching himself as the people of Zaire starved.

Nigerian Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, who supressed opposition political parties, and had a magazine editor critical of his abuses murdered.

Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, whose army slaughtered 5,000 unarmed civillians in ten months.

The countries of Kenya and Equatorial Guinea

Talking Points Memo quotes a PR industry trade sheet (you have to be a subscriber or I'd link directly) which confirms that Black did work for Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress. Chalabi is the Iraqi exile who gave false information about weapons of mass destruction to U.S. intelligence agencies because he wanted the U.S. to oust Saddam Hussein so that he could take power (incidentally, his Iraqi National Congress failed to win a single seat in Iraqi parliament). He is currently under investigation for misleading our intelligence agencies, as well as for embezzelment.

Other clients include American Airlines, Bethlehem Steel, the Tobacco Institute, and the Philippine Government.

Still heads his lobbying firm, doing "a lot of his work by telephone from McCain’s Straight Talk Express bus."
HUH?! He's heading his lobbying firm FROM the Straight Talk Express?!
Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

Coming soon . . .

Next week is Lobbyist Week!!

Sunni, Shi’a . . . what’s the big deal, anyway?

A little history . . . The Muslim community broke into the Sunni and Shi’a denominations (and other minority denominations) in the late 7th century, in a dispute over who would take leadership of the Muslim community after the death of Mohammed. About 85% of the Muslim world is Sunni; Shiites are in the minority in most of the Arab world, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are Sunni. There is a Shi’a majority In Iran and Iraq: Iran is 85% Shi’a and Iraq is 65% Shi’a. It is important to understand that the rift between Sunni and Shi’a is not simply a matter of a minor disagreement about religious and political leadership; wars have been fought between Sunni and Shi’a, and there is a history of oppression of one group by the other, and inter-tribal rifts along denominational lines going back hundreds of years. So the idea that Iran, a Shiite theocracy, would be training and supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni insurgent group which incites sectarian violence, is absurd in that context. Furthermore, if you don’t understand the difference between Sunni and Shi’a, you can’t possibly understand the delicate socio-political problem that Iraq faces.

Getting this all wrong isn’t simply a "gaffe," this is something John McCain gets wrong again and again and again:

November 25, 2007: "Al Qaeda is not defeated," McCain told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week. "They're on the run, but they are not defeated, and they continue to get supplies and equipment through Iran, and they continue to get suicide bombers through Syria."

February 28, 2008: In a speech at the Baker Institute for Public Policy: "Al Qaeda is there, they are functioning, they are supported in many times, in many ways by the Iranians . . ."

March 17, 2008: McCain said on the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show, "As you know, there are Al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they're moving back into Iraq."

March 18, 2008: In Jordan with Sen. Joe Lieberman, McCain stated that, "Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training . . ." and had to be corrected by Lieberman.

March 19, 2008: McCain Presidential Campaign Press Release: "Al Qaeda and Shia extremists -- with support from external powers such as Iran -- are on the run but not defeated."

April 8, 2008: During General David Petreaus’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, Sen McCain asked Gen. Petreaus, "Do you still view Al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat . . . Certainly not an obscure sect of, uh, Shiites, or Sunnis, or anybody else?"

To give you an idea of how complicated all of this is: There isn’t a single us-against-them "bad guy" in Iraq. Prime Minister Maliki’s ruling Shiite party, that our soldiers are dying for, was founded in Shiite Iran. Meanwhile, the Sunni warlords, whose support we’re paying for with our tax dollars, are opposed to the Iranian-backed Shiite government we support. Meanwhile, a separate "Sadrist" Shiite faction is fighting both the Sunni warlords we’re paying and the Iranian-backed Shiite ruling party we’re also supporting. But McCain can’t deal with this complexity.

Incidentally, the entirely separate, and relatively insignificant, Sunni group known as "Al Qaeda in Iraq" appears to be unaffiliated with "Al Qaeda" who took down the World Trade Center. Not to mention that "Al Qaeda in Iraq" didn’t exist until after we invaded Iraq, but that’s another story altogether.

So the idea that we are in Iraq fighting Al Qaeda is disingenuous at best. Either McCain, despite all his years in Washington, doesn’t understand this, or he has to lie about it to make his policies appear sane.

Another Reason Why No Hillary Supporter Should Vote For McCain

We all recall "How do we beat the bitch" question and McCain’s response: "That’s an excellent question." Watch the video!

In 1998, McCain told a crude joke about Chelsea, Hillary, and Janet Reno to an audience at a senate fundraiser. Chelsea was just a teenager at the time.

McCain cheated on then divorced his first wife when he came back from Vietnam and found that she had been disfigured in an accident. He eventually married younger, wealthier Cindy Lou Hensley one month after the divorce.

McCain reportedly called his wife Cindy the c-word in public.

How misogynistic is this man? I mean, when I did the Google search for the last thing, I actually typed, "c-word," because I couldn't bring myself to spell it out on my own computer in the privacy of my own home!

Why no Hillary supporter should vote for McCain

"You don't spend your life fighting for women's rights and then vote for Sen. McCain."
– St. Paul, MN mayor Chris Coleman quoted on MinnPost

McCain wants to overturn Roe v. Wade
Source: McCain’s campaign web site
Source: NPR

McCain opposed an equal pay bill in the Senate
Source: Associated Press

"McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion"
Source: CNN

McCain supports Bush policy of denying funding to anti-AIDS projects that include counseling about contraception or any sex education beyond abstinence.
Source: NY Times

Voted against requiring health insurance policies to cover prescription birth control.
Source: Planned Parenthood
Source: Salon.com

Voted to terminate the Title X family-planning program, which provided millions of women with health-care services ranging from birth control to breast cancer screenings.
Source: Planned Parenthood

Voted against funding teen-pregnancy-prevention programs and against ensuring that "abstinence only" programs be medically accurate and scientifically based.
Source: Planned Parenthood

Voted for the domestic "gag rule," which would have prohibited federally funded family planning clinics from providing full information about reproductive health options.
Source: NARAL

Voted to uphold the global "gag rule," which bans overseas health clinics from receiving U.S. family planning aid if they use their own funds to provide legal abortion services or even support or discuss abortion options.
Source: Planned Parenthood