Libby Shaw: Meet the Real John McCain

He is no Maverick.

Let's take a look at his long standing relationships with lobbyists.

McCain has claimed he is a reformer who is committed to diminishing the influence of lobbyists in Washington, and yet 59 lobbyists have or are donating to his campaign. More troubling is the fact that some of Washington’s most powerful lobbyists are directly advising or managing his campaign.

Folks may recall that Charlie Black had to resign from his role when the mainstream media disclosed that he was a key player in McCain's campaign. Take a look at a brief overview of Black’s sleazy resume. Black, by the way, did deals with Jack Abramoff when both represented the murderous butcher in Africa known as Jonas Savimbi.

John McCain has chosen super global lobbyist Randy Scheunemann to serve as his campaign’s foreign policy advisor.

Pat Buchanan, of all people, recently wrote a blistering and highly disturbing expose on Randy Scheunemann. In the World Net Daily he wrote:

Who is Randy Scheunemann?

He is the principal foreign policy adviser to John McCain and potential successor to Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski as national security adviser to the president of the United States.

But Randy Scheunemann has another identity, another role.
He is a dual loyalist, a foreign agent whose assignment is to get America committed to spilling the blood of her sons for client regimes who have made this moral mercenary a rich man.

From January 2007 to March 2008, the McCain campaign paid Scheunemann $70,000 – pocket change compared to the $290,000 his Orion Strategies banked in those same 15 months from the Georgian regime of Mikheil Saakashvili.

What were Mikheil's marching orders to Tbilisi's man in Washington? Get Georgia a NATO war guarantee. Get America committed to fight Russia, if necessary, on behalf of Georgia.

Scheunemann came close to succeeding.

Buchanan concludes:

Now Scheunemann is the neocon agent in place in McCain's camp.
The neocons got their war with Iraq. They are pushing for war on Iran. And they are now baiting the Russian Bear.

Is this what McCain has on offer? Endless war?

Why would McCain seek foreign policy counsel from the same discredited crowd that has all but destroyed the presidency of George Bush?

"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence ... a free people ought to be constantly awake," Washington warned in his Farewell Address. Our Founding Father was warning against the Randy Scheunemanns among us, agents hired by foreign powers to deceive Americans into fighting their wars. And none dare call it treason.

Another unsavory neoconservative character and blast from the past, Jack Abramoff’s former side kick, Ralph Reed, is raising money for John McCain’s campaign.

McCain’s ties to lobbyists are disturbingly deep and far reaching.

In an article posted on The Huffington Post on August 13, McCain’s lobbyists raked in $1 Billion for U.S. Clients.

The Huffington Post’s Seth Colter Wall reports that according to a non-partisan group Campaign Money Watch:

"The McCain campaign relies on big money lobbyists, and they'll rely on him," said David Donnelly, director of Campaign Money Watch. "In the 'you-scratch-my-back, I'll-scratch-yours' world of Washington, $931 million gets the special interests the best government money can buy. But just think of the payday these lobbyists might expect in a McCain Administration."

The director of Campaign Money Watch has posted a web site:
McCain’s Lobbyists Website

And yet John McCain pretends that he is a “reformer.”