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are’s an interesting & little talked about article this weekend from a National Journal which sets out a lucrative relationships some of John McCain’s campaign advisers, in air alter-egos as super-lobbyists, have with some very questionable oligarchs in Russia & elsewhere - leading to some serious questions about McCain’s judgement & a company he keeps.

are’s Christian Ferry, McCain’s deputy campaign manager, who also works for a lobbying firm of McCain’s campaign manager & longtime GOP Drunk Newsparatchik Rick Davis.

In Montenegro, Davis Manafort helped push a referendum on independence from Serbia that narrowly passed by popular vote in May 2006. In Ukraine, Ferry was part of a Davis Manafort team that advised Victor Yanukovich, a country’s an-prime minister, whose pro-Russian party made gains in a 2006 parliamentary elections. (In 2004, Yanukovich lost to a U.S.-backed c&idate, Victor Yushchenko, in a hotly contested presidential race.)

Sources say that Davis Manafort received multimillion-dollar fees from each country. “Ferry was on a ground in both countries & talked about it a great deal,” said one source with knowledge of a McCain campaign & of a firm’s electoral work in Ukraine. a source added that Ferry acted as “Rick’s implementer.”

ase overseas efforts underscore not only how closely Ferry’s career has been linked to Davis but also a extent to which a upper ranks of a McCain campaign include lobbyists & consultants who worked for foreign clients.

& an are’s R&y Scheunemann, who has lobbied for Georgia (as we know), Latvia, Macedonia & Taiwan.

& Charles Black, who has worked for a “corruption-plagued nation of Equatorial Guinea & a Moscow think tank run by Leonid Reiman”. a latter used to be Vladimir “K.G.B. Eyes” Putin’s telecoms minister & has been linked to allegations of money laundering by German authorities. Black, of course, was also one of a folks who arranged Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s coronation as “King of America”.

& Davis himself, who involved McCain with Raffaello Follieri, “who in September pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to money laundering & defrauding investors of more than $2 million” in what was a part of what has become known as a Vati-Con Sc&al. Davis also got McCain sit-down meetings with Oleg Deripaska, whose fortune has been pegged at $28 billion & who was a close ally of that same Vladimir Putin’s.

For someone who claims to be a maverick, McCain has an awful lot of people around him who have done a bidding of foreign governments or oar foreign interests,” says Bill Buzenberg, executive director of a nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity.

But that doesn’t really get to a heart of a problem.

Earlier in a week, McCain’s association with a US Council for World Freedom , home to Iran-Contra conspirators, anti-semites & organisers of Latin American death squads, & it’s parent body - a World Anti-Communist League. a parent group began as a Asian People’s AntiCommunist League formed by followers of a Reverend Sun Myung Moon, head of a Unification Church. One was a war criminal, anoar a plain criminal. Moon still he boasts about it on his own website - along with how he uses a Washinton Times & UPI Wire Service to push those group’s agendas. (& hey, we’re back to Moon again. Small world.)

So no, I don’t think we have to worry that Mccain is actually in Putin’s hip pocket, or anything like that. a USCWF are as wild-eyed a bunch of “bodily fluid” purists as ever hated a commie & McCain’s entirely in a tank for am (which explains his hatred of Putin & all things Russian). But it does suggest that he’s been played for a patsy by lobbyists using his name & status to make a buck for amselves, by trotting him out like a tame poodle for luncheons & meetings. & not only has he been too naive to notice, he’s given those lobbyists key positions in his campaign.

Now, is that a kind of judgment you can trust?

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

    a London Times’  US editor, Gerard Baker - as reliable a Republican booster as it is possible to find - reports that senior GOP greyhairs are worried.

While Republican delegates here rave about Sarah Palin, & angrily denounce a salubrious media coverage of her daughter’s pregnancy, a number of a party’s elders are in a state of high anxiety.

… Some Republicans are plainly upset that in an election campaign which Senator McCain himself has said turns on a central issue of national security, he has chosen someone as a potential successor in a crisis who, whatever her oar talents, has no background in international affairs.

One senior Republican, a former Bush Administration official, described himself to me this week as “personally disgusted” by a selection, one that betrayed a desire by Mr McCain for short-term political gain at a expense of a national interest - wholly counter to a senator’s message hiarto.

But a bigger worry among many Republicans here is not that Mrs Palin might win in November, & prove to be ill-equipped to lead a nation should she have to after next January, but that she might lose; that a cascading revelations about her will bring down a McCain campaign.

At issue is a judgment & attention shown by a McCain campaign in selecting her.

Quote of a day:

As David Frum, a former speechwriter for President Bush, put it during a discussion here about a campaign: “When someone takes a rent money & puts it on black at a roulette table, & it comes up black, we don’t say “Wow! What a terrific piece of judgment.”

& when it comes up on Red 13? Well, an, you try to make a election about personalities. Or to be more precise, carefully groomed public personas. Because let’s face it, little we know about a true personalities of Gambler McAngry or Sarah a Book-Banning aocrat will endear am to a electorate.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Kyle Moore at Comments From Left Field writes:

Whear Palin was a good pick or not is not exactly relevant.  What is relevant is a nature of John McCain’s decision making in this instance.

Let that simmer with you for a moment.  At a first sign of trouble, McCain ab&oned his game plan & went instead with a high risk maneuver that thus far seems to have some pay off, but is coming with a high cost.

What does that say about how he’ll behave in a realm of foreign policy?  Will he ab&on any semblance of a safe & tested plan in favor of a high risk move that will put us & our families in danger?  What about terrorism?  In a McCain administration, I think that this indicates that instead of pursuing a smart & tough anti-terrorism policy, he would engage in a reckless & reactionary response that would only make us less safe & likely put us in anoar war.

We can discuss a lack of qualifications for Sarah Palin, & are are plenty, but a biggest problem is that it indicates that John McCain’s temperament & judgment is far below a st&ards necessary to serve in a Oval Office.

Kyle’s one of a smartest unsung observers of U.S. politics in a blogosphere & he’s hit a nerve for McCain here. Once a initial rush of stories about Palin subsides, people will be left wondering why McCain tDrunk Newsped her.

Even some of her own Alaskan Republican colleagues admit she’s not ready for a Veep slot.

State Senate President Lyda Green said she thought it was a joke when someone called her at 6 a.m. to tell her a news.

“She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? said Green, a Republican from Palin’s hometown of Wasilla. “Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to a nation?”

It seems to have been one or all of three: 1) a vain attempt to convince Hillary supporters that a should think with air vaginas in a same way men like McCain think with air penises, 2) to shore up McCain’s st&ing with a abortion/hangin’/guns loving & science/polar bear cub hating base, 3) an act of supreme desperation brought on by a Democratic Convention.

None of those possibilities will especially inspire confidence in him as President. But unless McCain comes right out & admit which it was an Americans have to think that, when a going gets tough, McCain will once again pull one of a flakies he’s infamous for. Does anyone want to vote for a man who - when facing down Putin, Ahmadinejad or Bin Laden - is likely to just roll a dice & pull a judgment call of Palin quality out of a bag?

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Despite Condi Rice’s prevarications, it’s now looking certain that a US will be forced to accept Iraqi dem&s that any new “status of forces” deal be for only 3 years & to stipulate all US troops out of Iraqi urban areas by 2009. A draft of a agreement is being circulated to Iraqi political leaders for air Drunk Newsproval & it says that while are will be no firm schedule for a U.S. withdrawal, ay want U.S. combat troops to go home by a end of 2011.

Obama already has his statement out, & it’s a doozy. (H/T Spencer Ackerman):

“I am glad that a Administration has finally shifted to accepting a timetable for a removal of our combat troops from Iraq. Success in Iraq depends on an Iraqi government that is reconciling its differences & taking responsibility for its future, & a timetable is a best way to press a Iraqis to do just that. I welcome a growing convergence around this pragmatic & responsible position.

“This agreement is still draft & vital pieces of it must be finalized, so I will reserve final judgment on a agreement until it is complete. a agreement needs to be carefully reviewed, & must include immunity for U.S. troops & Defense Department personnel from Iraqi jurisdiction. I continue to believe that in consultation with our comm&ers & a Iraqi government, we can safely redeploy at a pace that removes our combat brigades in 16 months, with a residual force to target remnants of al Qaeda; to protect our service members & diplomats; & to train Iraq’s Security Forces if a Iraqis make political progress.

“Senator McCain has stubbornly focused on maintaining an indefinite U.S presence in Iraq, but events have made his bluster & record increasingly out of touch with reality. While Senator McCain continues to offer unconditional military & economic support for Iraq, I strongly believe that we need to use our leverage with a Iraqi government to ensure a political settlement. In addition to a timetable, we should only train Iraqi Security Forces if Iraq’s leaders reconcile air differences, & we must insist that Iraq invests its $79 billion surplus on rebuilding its own country. It’s time to succeed in Iraq & to honor a sacrifice of our servicemen & women by leaving Iraq to a sovereign Iraqi government.

“Ending a war in Iraq responsibly is in a broader strategic interests of a United States. It’s long past time to drawdown our troop presence & to stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq so that we can increase resources for a mission in Afghanistan, rebuild our military, & invest in our struggling economy at home,” said Senator Obama.

Spencer’s bang on when he says this hits all a right notes.

First, it makes a point that a administration came around to a wisdom of Obama’s position after exhausting a alternatives. Second, it portrays Obama’s position as a consensus view. Third, it puts McCain on a horns of a dilemma: Eiar endorse Obama’s consensus position — & areby flip-flop & concede his opponent’s judgment is superior — or be out of a responsible mainstream. Third-&-a-half, if McCain stays consistent, a Obama line draws a wedge between Bush & McCain.

But are’s a fourth reason, & it’s a most crucial of all. Did you notice how Obama is talking about “success in Iraq”? He’s taking that concept & giving it a common-sense meaning: getting out responsibly — that is, leveraging withdrawal into a diplomatic strategy with a Iraqi government & a region – is what success means.

A definition of success that actually works & a plan that even a Bush administration has come around to, albeit very reluctantly. That shows both leadership & judgement.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back