Randy Scheunemann’s Manchurian Candidate

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

There was a rather disturbing report in the New York Times last Saturday revealing that campaign aids to John McCain have begun limiting his access to outside advisers out of concern for "his tendency to adopt the last opinion he has heard."  In Loose Style, McCain Leads a Camp Divided – NYTimes.com That McCain is so easily susceptible to manipulation by his advisers should be of grave concern to all.

Neoconservative Randy Scheunemann serves as John McCain’s chief foreign policy aide and spokesman.  These two men were joined at the hip in their support for the Iraq war both before and after, and have been consistently wrong.  Blog For Arizona: McCain adviser’s horrifying Iraq track record

But it is the most recent conflict in Georgia which has disclosed the alarming revelation that John McCain is a Manchurian candidate under the control and influence of Neoconservative Randy Scheunemann. McCain adviser got money from Georgia – Yahoo! News:

John McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser and his business partner lobbied the senator or his staff on 49 occasions in a 3 1/2-year span while being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the government of the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

The payments raise ethical questions about the intersection of Randy Scheunemann’s personal financial interests and his advice to the Republican presidential candidate who is seizing on Russian aggression in Georgia as a campaign issue.

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On April 17, a month and a half after Scheunemann stopped working for Georgia, his partner signed a $200,000 agreement with the Georgian government. The deal added to an arrangement that brought in more than $800,000 to the two-man firm from 2004 to mid-2007. For the duration of the campaign, Scheunemann is taking a leave of absence from the firm. [See also While Aide Advised McCain, His Firm Lobbied for Georgia – washingtonpost.com ("[Scheunemann] prepped his boss for an April 17 phone call with the president of Georgia and then helped the presumptive Republican presidential nominee prepare a strong statement of support for the fledgling republic. The day of the call, a lobbying firm partly owned by the adviser, Randy Scheunemann, signed a $200,000 contract to continue providing strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.")

"Scheunemann’s work as a lobbyist poses valid questions about McCain’s judgment in choosing someone who — and whose firm — are paid to promote the interests of other nations," said New York University law professor Stephen Gillers. "So one must ask whether McCain is getting disinterested advice, at least when the issues concern those nations." [See also While Aide Advised McCain, His Firm Lobbied for Georgia – washingtonpost.com ("[E]thics experts have raised concerns about former lobbyists for foreign governments providing advice to presidential candidates about those same countries. "The question is, who is the client? Is the adviser loyal to income from a foreign client, or is he loyal to the candidate he is working for now?" said James Thurber, a lobbying expert at American University.")

Russia’s invasion of Georgia casts a spotlight on Scheunemann’s business interests and McCain’s conduct as a senator.  Scheunemann’s firm lobbied McCain’s office on four bills and resolutions regarding Georgia, with McCain as a co-sponsor or supporter of all of them.  McCain has been to Georgia three times since 1997.  McCain adviser got money from Georgia – Yahoo! News:

After contacts with McCain’s staff, the senator introduced a resolution saluting the people of Georgia on the first anniversary of the Rose Revolution that brought Mikhail Saakashvili to power.

Four months ago, on the same day that Scheunemann’s partner signed the latest $200,000 agreement with Georgia, McCain spoke with Saakashvili by phone. The senator then issued a strong statement saying that "we must not allow Russia to believe it has a free hand to engage in policies that undermine Georgian sovereignty."

"As a private lobbyist trying to influence lawmakers and Bush administration staffers, Scheunemann at times relied on his access to McCain in his work for foreign clients on Capitol Hill. He and his partner reported 71 phone conversations and meetings with McCain and his top advisers since 2004 on behalf of foreign clients, including Georgia, according to forms they filed with the Justice Department."

"The contacts often focused on Georgia’s aspirations to join NATO and on legislative proposals, including a measure co-sponsored by McCain that supported Georgia’s position on South Ossetia, one of the Georgian regions taken over by Russia this weekend." While Aide Advised McCain, His Firm Lobbied for Georgia – washingtonpost.com

The Svengali-like influence that this registered foreign lobbyist for Georgia exercises over John McCain has begun to draw the notice of an increasingly uncomfortable McMedia.  McCain’s Focus on Georgia Raises Question of Propriety – washingtonpost.com:

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili says he talks to McCain, a personal friend, several times a day. McCain’s top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, was until recently a paid lobbyist for Georgia’s government.  McCain also announced this week that two of his closest allies, Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), would travel to Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi on his behalf, after a similar journey by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

The extent of McCain’s involvement in the military conflict in Georgia appears remarkable among presidential candidates, who traditionally have kept some distance from unfolding crises out of deference to whoever is occupying the White House. The episode also follows months of sustained GOP criticism of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, who was accused of acting too presidential for, among other things, briefly adopting a campaign seal and taking a trip abroad that included a huge rally in Berlin.

"We talk about how there’s only one president at a time, so the idea that you would send your own emissaries and really interfere with the process is remarkable," said Lawrence Korb, a Reagan Defense Department official who now acts as an informal adviser to the Obama campaign. "It’s very risky and can send mixed messages to foreign governments. . . . They accused Obama of being presumptuous, but he didn’t do anything close to this."

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In often-lengthy remarks about Georgia this week on the campaign trail, McCain repeatedly talked of how many times he had been to the region, let it be known that he had talked daily with Saakashvili since the crisis began and made it clear that there had been times he thought Bush’s response could have been stronger.

He provided a primer for why Americans should care about the "tiny little democracy" and tried to tie the foreign crisis with a domestic one: oil. Georgia is "part of a strategic energy corridor affecting individual lives far beyond" the region, he said.

In fact, it is unprecedented.  No candidate for president has so openly dared to presume to conduct a parallel foreign policy at odds with official U.S. policy and to be so arrogant as to send his own emissaries – sitting U.S. senators who should know better – to a foreign country, particularly at the height of a crisis.  McCain is operating a shadow government, something which Americans have always rejected.  McCain’s bellicose and belligerent threats towards Russia is at odds with the official, more nuanced U.S. position, and no doubt reflects the advice that Randy Scheunemann whispers in his ear.  He represents a Neoconservative shadow government, the Vulcans, whom many analysts had prematurely and incorrectly dismissed as having lost influence in Washington after the disaster they created in Iraq.

"The Obama campaign has been generally cautious in its remarks about the Georgia conflict, and the campaign yesterday declined to comment on the appropriateness of McCain’s role. But earlier this week, Obama adviser Susan Rice said McCain "may have complicated the situation" with his early tough rhetoric on the dispute."

"John McCain shot from the hip," Rice said on MSNBC, calling his initial statement "very aggressive, very belligerent."  McCain’s Focus on Georgia Raises Question of Propriety – washingtonpost.com

Brent Budowsky sounded the alarm by noting in The Hill’s Pundits Blog » John McCain on Russia: Angry, Bellicose, Belligerent and Extreme:

John McCain needs to calm down, stop telling the world he speaks for the American people, stop escalating his warlike rhetoric almost by the hour, and stop the phony tough talk that makes a bad situation worse and would only heighten the danger at a dangerous enough moment.

McCain takes too much advice from a lobbyist who makes money paid for by Georgia. He takes too much bandwidth making threats that neither he nor President Bush nor any American president can back up without creating even more damage to American security and more danger to world security.

John McCain should stop talking as though he is the president, and Americans should and I predict will take note of the dangers he would bring, if he ever is the president.

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[His] arrogance in claiming that he speaks for the American people during a dangerous crisis demonstrates greater hubris than anything he will accuse Obama of doing.

McCain’s belligerence, bellicosity and bluster on Iraq and Iran and now Russia demonstrate clearly the dangers he would pose as commander in chief when his right-wing blog-like rhetoric could become American military policy in a dangerous world.

The talking heads in the McMedia who earlier in the Georgia crisis were simply reading from the McCain campaign talking points that he was "appearing presidential" and was "prescient" in predicting the crisis in Georgia had better wake up to the stark reality of what they are witnessing before their very eyes.  John McCain has been susceptible to the influence of Neoconservatives who lusted for war with Iraq.  But now the conflict in Georgia has disclosed the alarming revelation that John McCain is a Manchurian candidate under the control and influence of Neoconservative Randy Scheunemann.

John McCain is simply too dangerous and too unstable to be president.  And Americans should be alarmed.