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.