Dems hope Singlaub is McCain’s Ayers

Politico ^ | 10/7/2008 | KENNETH P. VOGEL & CECILE DEHESDIN

[markomalley]

Since the mid-1980s, there’s been almost no attention paid to John McCain’s long-ago association with a controversial group implicated in a secretive plot to supply arms to Nicaraguan militia groups during the Iran-Contra affair.

But now, with the Republican presidential candidate stepping up his negative blitz against Democratic opponent Barack Obama, some Democrats are hoping that the group – the U.S. Council for World Freedom, and its founder, John Singlaub – will become for McCain what Bill Ayers has become for Obama: a fleeting past association used as ammunition for political broadsides.

Over past few days, a handful of Obama allies – none directly associated with his campaign – have called attention to McCain’s ties to the council to rebut the McCain campaign’sincreasing focus on Obama’s ties to Ayers, a founder of the 1960s radical Weather Underground.

“This guilt by association path is going to be trouble ultimately for the McCain campaign,” Democratic strategist Paul Begala said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “John McCain sat on the board of a very right-wing organization, it was the U.S. Council for World Freedom, it was chaired by a guy named John Singlaub, who wound up involved in the Iran contra scandal. It was an ultra conservative, right-wing group.”

Since Begala made his comments, in which he mentioned the Anti-Defamation League’s 1981 condemnation of the council’s parent group as anti-Semitic, a growing group of bloggers have referenced Begala’s self-described “shot across the bow,” and have tried to flesh out McCain’s ties to the council and to Singlaub, a decorated retired Army major general with a background in special operations and intelligence.

Some lefty bloggers urged Obama’s campaign, which on Monday unveiled an ad highlighting McCain’s involvement in the “Keating Five” savings-and-loan scandal, to expand its attacks to include the U.S. Council for World Freedom.

Singlaub founded the council in Phoenix in November, 1981, as the U.S. branch of the World Anti-Communist League, which he also helped run for a time. The league billed itself as a supporter of “pro-Democratic resistance movements fighting communist totalitarianism.” But the Anti-Defamation League in 1981 alleged that the anti-Communist league also had had “increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact, for extremists, racists and anti-Semites.”

Singlaub eventually won some praise from the anti-defamation group for working to purge those elements form the league.

The U.S. Council recruited McCain soon after it set up shop in Phoenix, where McCain was starting to lay down roots as he eyed his first run for elected office, a 1982 U.S. House race he won.

An aide to McCain’s presidential campaign, who did not want to be identified discussing an episode the aide had no firsthand knowledge of, said McCain would never have gotten involved with the council if it had continuing ties to extremists, racists and anti-Semites.

“McCain has a long and consistent and strong record on issues involving Israel and he would never be associated with anything that was anti-Semitic in any way,” the aide said.

In October 1986, McCain told Phoenix’s New Times alternative weekly newspaper that he agreed to join the group’s advisory board because “they’re for freedom and they’ve got some good people involved,” but he also asserted he only attended one meeting.

The New Times article – and a handful of stories in other local papers – appeared in the days after the Reagan administration fingered the council for operating a plane that was shot down that month while flying supplies to Nicaraguan Contra rebels.

Singlaub, who did not respond to Politico’s telephone and e-mail messages seeking comment, at the time denied the council was involved with the plane. But he later acknowledged during congressional hearings on the Iran-Contra affair that he was part of a secret program carried out with the knowledge of U.S. military officials that used former intelligence operatives to arm the anti-Communist Contras, circumventing a ban on U.S. military assistance to the rebels.

At the time of the crash, McCain was running for Senate, and his campaign aides told the local press that he had resigned from the council’s board in 1984.

“John had heard at the time that they were supplying arms to the Contras,” Torie Clarke, then McCain’s Senate campaign spokeswoman, told the Phoenix Gazette. She told the Tucson Citizen that McCain “vehemently opposes any activity that would violate the neutrality act.” But she said McCain did not alert authorities to what she called the council’s “many questionable activities.” She also stressed to the Citizen that “there weren’t any real specific incidents. There was a general theme with which John was not aligned.”

According to New Times, though, McCain’s 1984 letter of resignation attributed his decision to part with the group to his lack of time, but praised the group’s “dedication to our country.” McCain remained on the group’s letterhead through March 1985, and he attended the group’s October 1985 “Freedom Fighter of the Year” award ceremony in Washington.

Brian Rogers, a spokesman for McCain’s presidential campaign, issued a statement to Politico asserting that McCain “disassociated himself” from the group “when questions were raised about its activities, but that in no way diminishes his leadership role in ensuring that the forces of democracy and freedom prevailed in Central America.”

Rogers said McCain “fought long, hard and proud in opposition to Communist influence in Central America throughout the 1980s at a time when many, including Senator Obama’s running mate Senator Joe Biden, tried to cut off money for anti-Communist forces in El Salvador and Nicaragua.”

Begala told Politico that he raised McCain’s connection to the U.S. Council because he wanted to prove that “it’s really unwise for the McCain campaign to begin a campaign of guilt by association. And I was trying to demonstrate the way I think that Democrats ought to run their campaign. I could have just gone on and said ‘Democrats need to counterattack.’ Instead, I thought: why don’t I just do it?”

[Wonder Warthog]

Actually, the “Iran-Contra” connection of McCain will be viewed as a POSITIVE to any but extreme leftists. McCain was on the board of an organization fighting America’s enemies, Obama is in bed WITH America’s declared enemies. The cases are just “slightly” different.

[darth]

The Contras had significant support from Mossad and Israel while the Sandinistas enjoyed similar support from the Palestinian terrorists. The ADL probably just had their liberal panties in a wad because someone actually was killing commies.