Campaign Shake-up

I was startled yesterday to hear a reporter on NPR say that John McCain played a big part in exposing GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s crimes. Yes, McCain and Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell did call Abramoff and Scanlon before the Indian affairs committee and exposed some of their thieving and lying, but even then he was pulling his punches in a line of investigation that should have lead to Tom Delay, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, and George W. Bush back in 2004.

McCain is a little sensitive about having sold his soul to the corporate lobbyists that have been pulling the Republican Party’s strings for over twenty years. Now that this story’s getting legs, he’s had to start throwing people overboard. You see, by law, federal lobbyists cannot be on the campaign payroll, and they are prohibited from donating or collecting money.

Bush crony and ex-Texas Congressman Tom Loeffler is just the latest to go. His firm has received $15 million from the Saudis, and he represented the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Group that got the multi-billion dollar contract for air-refueling tankers that McCain got pulled from American company Boeing Aerospace.

Already gone are Doug Goodyear and Doug Davenport, registered lobbyists for the Burmese junta that today is preventing the delivery of food, water, and medical aid to their disaster-stricken people.

There’s Rick Davis and Charlie Black, whose clients include SBC Communications, Russian billionaires, and the Somali government that sheltered Osama bin Laden.

And last, consider Craig Shirley, cut loose from the campaign when he was connected to 527 group “Stop Him Now,” an anti Obama smear campaign, offshoot of anti Clinton group “Stop Her Now.” Shirley was part of the group that aired the racist Willie Horton ads in 1996, and later organized the first press conference for Paula Jones, who he found by dragging a hundred dollar bill through a trailer park.

John McCain is no outsider. He was born into the Washington power structure, son and grandson of Navy Admirals. His choice of associates shows that he’s no “Mr. Clean.” This is another troubling aspect to one who was once an appealing candidate.