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What Do Hezbollah and the Myanmar Junta Have in Common? John McCain!

I saw this in Politico.com earlier, and now see that Josh has picked up on it on the front page:

McCain convention chief quits after past ties to Burma revealed

I found it interesting, because the departure of Doug Goodyear follows fast on the heals of the removal on April 30, of Ali Jawad, a "known Republican donor and former Bush finance committee member," from McCain's Michigan Finance Committee:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/the-mccain-hezb.html

It turns out that Goodyear did a fair amount of lobbying for the military junta that is currently in control of Myanmar (or what the Bushies prefer to call Burma), and which is currently blocking aid efforts for the one million desperately needy survivors of the recent cyclone devastation.

Ali Jawad, a "well known member of the Arab-American community in Dearborn", seems to have been rumored to have ties to Hezbollah, and although appears to have been unfairly attacked because of it, was removed from McCain's campaign.

This all comes at the same time that a story from the Washington Post has resurfaced in which McCain was quoted as being critical of Bill Clinton for going after Osama bin Laden, in 1998, suggesting that it was an attempt to merely divert attention from his personal problems:


Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) stressed the importance of a strong U.S. role in foreign affairs, and criticized the administration for ignoring problems other than bin Laden, including Iraq dragging its feet on arms inspections, "North Korea building nuclear weapons," a stalled Mideast peace process, and "thousands of people being ethnically cleansed in Kosovo.

"This administration for the last seven months has neglected compelling national security threats besides this," said McCain, a member of the Armed Services Committee. "I cannot say that they've been neglected because of Monica Lewinsky, but I can say unequivocally that they have been neglected."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/react082198.htm

This all begs the question, are we really afraid to go up against this guy in the fall?

Anyone seen Vicki Isemen lately?


Comments (13)

I think Cindy McCain did Vicki Iseman in. It's amazing, she shows up in the NY Times for one day, is an instant hit and then she disappears. Very suspicious.

McCain has such a horrendous lobbyist problem. He also has a huge problem with his shifting positions on various issues such as abortion. No wonder the GOP is losing its "bearings" on his nomination.

From the same article:

The Newsweek article also reported that some of Goodyear's allies worry that worry the choice of Goodyear could fuel perceptions that McCain is surrounded by lobbyists. DCI Group earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients, the report said.

Newsweek also reported DCI has been a pioneer in running "independent" expenditure campaigns by so-called 527 groups, the kind of operations that McCain has denounced in his battle for campaign finance reform.

I hope the GOP corruption, embodied here in McCain, has reached some kind of (forgive me for using this phrase) critical mass. How I would love the MSM to begin publicly connecting the dots between Congress (McCain), Corporations (Goodyear), and military black ops (Myanmar). This story has The Military, the Industrial, the Congressional, and the Complex. It's got everything, including a presidential candidate on top of it. Cui bono? Cui gives a shit. It's got a freakin' bow on it.

Please forgive the football analogy, but some years the conference championship (AFC or NFC) is the better game than the Super Bowl, as the opposing conference is so much weaker. It's one of the reasons I've suspected that HRC is fighting so hard to stay in it. I think everyone knows what huge problems McCain faces. He could run in an election against "undecided", and undecided would win.

I agree. Oh, and, for the record, I realize that Goodyear means the man, not the tires.

I'll be interested to see how McCain addresses his "torture" as a POW. According to his party, what was done to him by his captors is no longer considered torture, since his organs didn't fail, and he didn't die from the "enhanced interrogation techniques" that he was subjected to.

He'll have to say that he wasn't really tortured, just imprissoned, no?

Otherwise, won't he be contradicting himself? Not that it matters to the Media...

No, no, no, guys, you're forgetting: It's only torture when someone else (usually those "other people", you know, the darker-skinned ones, usually with funny-sounding names) does it to us.

We, as Americans, by definition can do no wrong. Didn't you get the memo?

What's funny, is that Goodyear was seen as preferable to the GOP favorite, Paul Manafort:

Ironically, Goodyear was chosen for the post after the McCain campaign nixed another candidate, Paul Manafort, who runs a lobbying firm with McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis. The prospect of choosing Manafort created anxiety in the campaign because of his long history of representing controversial foreign clients, including Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. More recently, he served as chief political consultant to Viktor Yanukovich, the former Ukrainian prime minister who has been widely criticized for alleged corruption and for his close ties to Russia's Vladimir Putin—a potential embarrassment for McCain, who in 2007 called Putin a "totalitarian dictator." "The Ukrainian stuff was viewed as too much," says one McCain strategist, who asked not to be identified discussing the matter. Manafort did not return calls for comment.

Shouldn't someone be paying more attention to these guys?

oops, link:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/136321

Why was Goodyear seen as the better alternative? From the same Newsweek article:

Goodyear is CEO of DCI Group, a consulting firm that earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients.

Potentially more problematic: the firm was paid $348,000 in 2002 to represent Burma's military junta, which had been strongly condemned by the State Department for its human-rights record and remains in power today. Justice Department lobbying records show DCI pushed to "begin a dialogue of political reconciliation" with the regime. It also led a PR campaign to burnish the junta's image, drafting releases praising Burma's efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing "falsehoods" by the Bush administration that the regime engaged in rape and other abuses. "It was our only foreign representation, it was for a short tenure, and it was six years ago," Goodyear told NEWSWEEK, adding the junta's record in the current cyclone crisis is "reprehensible."

Another issue: DCI has been a pioneer in running "independent" expenditure campaigns by so–called 527 groups, precisely the kind of operations that McCain, in his battle for campaign-finance reform, has denounced.


So let's talk about John McCain's judgement. Seems like this is campaign issue #1.

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