Posted on 08/14/2008 12:29:23 AM PDT by BGHater
John McCain's top foreign-policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, is a leading expert on U.S.-allied Georgia -- and was a paid lobbyist for the former Soviet republic until March, in the run-up to what has become a major battle between Georgia and Russia.
Democratic rival Barack Obama's presidential campaign was quick to try to paint Mr. Scheunemann's dual roles as a conflict of interest after Sen. McCain swiftly took Georgia's side in the dispute, and cited it as evidence that Sen. McCain is "ensconced in a lobbyist culture," as Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan told reporters over the weekend.
But given the rapid escalation of the fighting, and the fact that Georgia is being viewed as a victim of its neighbor's aggression, Mr. Scheunemann's ties to the small nation and its pro-Western Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili may look less like a weakness and more like a strength in the first foreign-policy crisis of the general election campaign.
"In a major international crisis, what is their response?" Mr. Scheunemann said of the Obama campaign in an interview Sunday. "To take a cheap shot at me, as if helping a struggling democracy is somehow wrong." Mr. Scheunemann took a formal leave of absence from his two-person lobbying firm earlier this year amid controversy over Sen. McCain's ties to lobbyists.
Mr. Scheunemann's firm, Orion Strategies, continues to represent Georgia in Washington, and signed a new $200,000 contract with the country in April. Mr. Scheunemann remains an owner of the firm, though he is no longer registered to lobby for it. Mr. Scheunemann said he has made more than a dozen trips to Georgia since he began lobbying for the country in 2004.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Good. McCain was wise to chose a counselor who is familiar with Georgia. Makes him all the more qualified.
...this is pathetic, Barry.
Considering that Barry’s advisors tend to be more devoted to Hamastan and Hizbullah, I’d much rather have a President McCain who will be a lot more inclined to support and defend democratic peoples against the SCUMBAGS of the world.
...so which is it,is McCain being advised by a Georgian expert, or is he “shooting from the hip?”
‘President McCain who will be a lot more inclined to support and defend democratic peoples against the SCUMBAGS of the world.’
I simply want a Pres. at the very least to defend OUR country from invasion then he can worry about overseas Monsters.
Well I want both, but unfortunately our political system is not offering us a strong borders, sane immigration policy candidate who can win in 2008. We can at least have a strong international affairs and military security President, which Obambi could not be.
Um. So McCain's staff is too pro-American? Or they have an abundance of relations with countries that are pro-America?
What a horrible thing to say! < /sarc>
Perhaps McCain needs to take donations from Hezbollah to make Barry feel better. Lol.
Excerpts:
But while Mr. Davis took a leave from Davis Manafort in 2006, the company has developed a specialty in recent years in a type of lobbying for which firms do not have to register — namely, representing the interests abroad of foreign politicians and businessmen.
In recent years, the company’s clients have included the richest man in Ukraine and a former premier of that country whose opponents were supported by Mr. McCain. The Washington Post reported in January that Mr. Davis also set up a meeting in Switzerland in 2006 between Mr. McCain and a Russian businessman, who has been barred from entering this country, apparently because of accusations about past ties to organized crime in Russia. That businessman, Oleg Deripaska, has denied such links.
Another senior McCain campaign aide who has lobbied on behalf of foreign governments over the past seven years is Randy Scheunemann, the chief foreign policy adviser.
Over the past several years, Mr. Scheunemann met several times with Mr. McCain to discuss his clients’ interests. He introduced the senator to the foreign ministers of Albania, Croatia and Macedonia as they tried to win admission to NATO, and a representative of Taiwan as it lobbied for free trade, records show. Mr. Scheunemann also accompanied Mr. McCain to Latvia in 2001 and Georgia in 2006.
Mr. Scheunemann was a registered foreign agent until March, when he ended his registrations for several countries. He had joined the McCain campaign several months earlier.
Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, who was himself a lobbyist until he took a leave of absence from his firm, Davis Manafort, two years ago. In 2005, Mr. Davis was registered as a lobbyist for corporate clients like the telecommunications company Verizon. Tom Loeffler, the campaign’s general co-chairman, whose lobbying firm had represented Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong Wayne Berman, the campaign’s deputy finance chairman, has lobbied for the governments of Cyprus and Trinidad and Tobago, along with many other corporate clients. Christian Ferry, who is a lobbyist for Mr. Davis’s firm, is Mr. McCain’s deputy campaign manager.
McCain stands charged with deliberately and maliciously supporting democracy over the increasingly progressive, humanitarian, and laudible People's Federation of Russia.
More serious is the accusation that the senator, who is older than dirt, took onto his campaign staff a man, Randy Scheunemann, who willfully and with malice aforethought accepted money from the liberal democracy of Georgia -- but pointedly refused to do the same for Georgia's progressive neighbor to the north, which we can unanimously agree he should have done, in all fairness. To discriminate between democracy and progressivism, as McCain continues to do, is to engage in out and out discrimination.
The Rest
Exactly, just draws more attention to the fact that Barry is blaming the Georgians.
McCain's foreign policy advisor actually has some experience dealing with foreigners--ooogah boogah!
Talk about grasping at straws. Obama demonstrates each day that he has no vision, no plans, he just flails aroundwith the politics as usual of "Whatever he's for, I'm against it." That's some CHANGE for ya.
So, Barry, who are your advisors affiliated with?
Why would an anti-American Marxist be in favor of helping young, struggling democracies?
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