Meet John McCain's Pals

Ok, who would you like to see alongside the next President of the United States in a crisis, Warren Buffett or Phil Gramm? General Colin Powell or Randy Scheunemann? Paul Volcker or Nancy Pfotenhauer? We know a great deal about Powell (Republican former Secretary of State, former National Security Advisor and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), Buffett (CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, one of the richest and most successful influential businessmen in the world), and Volcker (former Chairman of the Federal Reserve), all prominent Obama supporters, but what do we know about some of the luminaries who have John McCain's ear?

First and foremost, there is Phil Gramm, the former Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, whom Nobel Economics Laureate Paul Krugman has called "McCain's guru on economics," and whose deregulation of the banking industry not only enabled banks to go into the subprime mortgage business in the first place, but made possible the "gimmicks" - hybrid instruments, credit swaps and the like - that McCain now rails against. Krugman famously described Gramm in his New York Times column as "the arch-deregulator, who took special care in his Senate days to prevent oversight of financial derivatives -- the very instruments that sank Lehman and A.I.G., and brought the credit markets to the edge of collapse." Gramm, we should all remember, was McCain's most prominent and influential economic adviser until earlier this summer when he dismissed the state of the economy as a "mental recession" and called Americans a "nation of whiners."

McCain has been "palling around" with Phil Gramm for decades. The two are close personal friends, and McCain was national chairman of Gramm's short-lived 1996 bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

And then there are the lobbyists. The neo-con Randy Scheunemann, McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, was a registered foreign agent for the Republic of Georgia and several other countries while simultaneously serving as McCain's senior foreign policy advisor. (Scheunemann also has close ties to the discredited Iraqi politician, Ahmad Chalabi.) In November 2007, Scheunemann discussed Georgia with an aide in McCain's Senate office. And according to the Washington Post, on the same day that Scheunemann was prepping McCain for a telephone call with Georgia's president in April of this year, Scheunemann's lobbying firm signed "signed a $200,000 contract to continue providing strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington." Both McCain and Sarah Palin have made American support for Georgia a cornerstone of their foreign policy. Palin told Charles Gibson in her ABC News interview that she considered the Russian invasion of Georgia to have been "unprovoked," and that the United States might have to go to war against Russia to protect Georgia. Not surprisingly, Scheunemann was one of the McCain advisers who prepped Palin for the Gibson interview. As Kelley Beaucar Vlahos recently asked in The American Conservative (hardly a left-wing publication), "When McCain suggests there will be 'severe, long-term negative consequences' for Russia if it doesn't leave Georgia alone, how do Americans know that isn't the $800,000 Scheunemann's lobbying shop has gotten from Georgia since 2004 talking?"

Charlie Black, McCain's chief campaign adviser, is a long-time lobbyist for Colombian interests, as are numerous major contributors to the McCain campaign. The lobbying firm Black headed until earlier this year earned more than $1.8 million from Occidental Petroleum Company, Colombia's largest oil and gas producer, and has represented numerous other Colombian businesses and individuals. According to the New York Times, Black

"lobbied Congress, the State Department and the White House on Occidental's behalf regarding 'general energy issues' and 'general trade issues' involving Colombia. His list of activities also included winning 'foreign assistance for Colombia' and efforts to block an economic embargo against the country, which has a questionable human rights record."

Small wonder, then, that McCain considers the Colombian Free Trade Agreement "something that's a no-brainer." McCain's instinctive position appears to be that what's good for his lobbyist pals must be good for the United States. This is the same Charlie Black, incidentally, who told Fortune Magazine in June that another terrorist attack on U.S. soil "would be a big advantage" to McCain, and who masterminded Jesse Helms' racist 1990 North Carolina senatorial campaign against Harvey Gantt.

Still others in the McCain entourage have close ties to the mortgage industry. Campaign Manager Rick Davis used to head the Homeownership Alliance, an advocacy group on the behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and Davis Manafort, the lobbying firm that still bears Davis' name, received monthly $15,000 payments from Freddie Mac until August of this year. And Kurt Pfotenhauer, the husband of McCain's senior policy adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer, was the top lobbyist for the Mortgage Bankers Association. The telegenic Nancy Pfotenhauer is also a former Washington lobbyist for Koch Industries whose Koch Oil subsidiary was once cited by a Senate Committee as "the most dramatic example of an oil company stealing by deliberate mismeasurement and fraudulent reporting." Only a few days ago, Ms. Pfotenhauer said that while the Obama-Biden ticket was doing well in Northern Virginia, "the rest of the state, real Virginia, if you will, I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain's message." She apparently believes that the upstate part of the Commonwealth of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe has somehow turned into a "fake" Virginia.

Davis has another questionable accomplishment to his credit. According to the Washington Post, he "helped arrange an introduction in 2006 between McCain and a Russian billionaire whose suspected links to anti-democratic and organized-crime figures are so controversial that the U.S. government revoked his visa." No one has suggested that McCain ever did any improper favors for Oleg Deripaska, the billionaire in question who just happens to be, again according to the Washington Post, "one of the richest men in Russia and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin." Nevertheless, the very fact that McCain had dinner and drinks, that is, "palled around," with the controversial Deripaska at least once less than three years ago at an exclusive Swiss resort (seven months later, in August 2006, McCain allegedly had dinner again with Deripaska and Davis in Montenegro) is at least as noteworthy as what Colin Powell has called Barack Obama's "very, very limited relationship" with Bill Ayers on the board of a respected Republican-funded educational foundation in Chicago.

At last week's debate, Barack Obama told us that he would look for guidance and advice to individuals like Warren Buffett, Paul Volcker, Joe Biden, and Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We must assume that Phil Gramm, Randy Scheunemann, Charlie Black, Rick Davis and Nancy Pfotenhauer would figure prominently in a McCain-Palin administration. Is there anything else anyone needs to know before going into the voting booth?

Menachem Rosensaft is a lawyer in New York City

Comments

[JayInDallas]

Thank you! Thank you very much for calling out this gang of thieves. Too bad the MSM doesn't have the guts to do the American people the service.

[priorato]

Before you vote for McCain, read this article:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain

[tstrimling]

In the last debate, Senator McCain suggested that one of the reasons he applauded Gov. Palin was that she provided his campaign the opportunity to escape Washington's "old boy network." The Senator's campaign is so infiltrated with old boys (and old gals, ie Ms. Nancy P.) who are inextricably tied to special interest lobbies, it is impossible to know which policies are authentic and which are bought and paid for. The first time I saw Nancy Pfotenhauer on one of the Sunday news shows, I was both impressed and repulsed with her ability to redirect the message then deliver an attack with a smile. it took a while to discern what I found so unsettling about her, but after watching her alongside Senator Claire McCaskill, I think it's authenticity. Her latest statement suggesting that citizens residing in Northern Virginia are not really Virginians should give every supporter of Senator McCain pause...when will they call you un-American?

[MajorKong]

Don't forget that Bill (let's attack every country we don't like) Kristol is also a foreign policy advisor to McCain.

[SEQUOIABISON]

Great points Menachem, we have been so busy defending the Bill Ayres thing we neglected to see who McCain pals around with, thanks for the reminder and giving us another reason not to vote for the POW.

Obama/Biden

[AndrewInToronto]

Additionally on Mr. Gramm, he was a Vice Chair of the Swiss investment bank, USB, which in December of last year needed its own bailout from the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation and a Middle East investor to the sum of US$9.7bn and US$1.7bn, respectively. In his capacity he advised the global markets division of the bank through its investments division (according to its annual report issued in September of this year).

[CyrusBeaucephus]

McCain is up to his eyeballs in lobbyists, and Palin has a track record of abusing executive power. What a great ticket. I bet they have all kind of new ideas. New ways to screw America, that is

[ChaiKat]

So it really is more of the same. Bush/Cheney all over again.

[plafayette]

I really don't want to sound too cocky here....but I am encouraged to see that more and more people are speaking out against the McCain/Palin ticket. This morning my son... (Moe, the cable contractor) told me he watched a guy come out of his house remove the McCain/Palin yard banner from in front of his own house... crumple it under his arm and then head back inside his house. We live in Connecticut. I honestly believe that folks are starting to get the message...for all the reasons Menachem lays out and then some. Heavy on the then some!

[longislandlol]

What about that Bachmann woman- that wonderful Chris Matthews had on-- another piece of work!

[starboymikey]

I also seem to remember reading something about Phil Gramm's wife making several million bucks with Enron. She got some sort of fake consultant job with them after her husband helped deregulate the energy industry, which allowed Enron to suck hundreds of millions of dollars out of California, before they went bust, trashing the retirement savings of their employees.

Though we may never know for certain because of the shameless lack of transparency on the part of Dick Cheney's energy commission, there is good reason to believe that Ken Lay, the late Enron chief, played a major role in writing the Bush administration's energy policy back in 2001.

The fact that this information has been buried by the mainstream media is truly a crime.

[twgbonehead]

Sorry, Ken Lay is only "late" when he forgets to wind his alarm clock. (The erratic power, even in third-world Paradises tends to make electric clocks unreliable).

[knick49]

There is a point about Phil Gramm that no one has raised yet. Gramm is a Vice Chairman of USB Investment Bank. One of his co-executives at USB is Patrick M. Sheahan who is Executive Director, Public Affairs. In addition to his USB position, Mr. Sheahan is on the Board of Directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago. Another of the current directors is Bill Ayers and the Woods Fund Board of Directors is in fact the same board that Ayers and Barack Obama served together on from 1999 to 2002.

Isn't John McCain therefore likewise open to "Bill Ayers" criticism through his connection to Phil Gramm or shouldn't it at least neutralize the criticism of Obama?

[Demi-Crat]

Don't forget his Pal G Gordon Liddy..The friendship no one seems to mention in the media

[mooses4obama]

Put John Hagee, McCain's "Spiritual Advisor" on the list also.,

[22Tall1]

And the beat goes on and on and on and on. Wake up now or take heavy meds later, the choice is yours.

Wait!, who can afford meds.?

Wait , who can afford the car or the gas to go get them?

Wait, where do we go if we can get them?

Are we in some kind of parallel universe? How can anyone still be undecided? They have to decide and decide NOW!!!! Wake Up!!!!

What more do you need?

[pons1595]

[Oligarchy is a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.] The MSM is a joke--at best--they are owned, controlled and part of the Corporate Oligarchy that controls every aspect of your life; nothing is beyond the Oligarchy's control; you are manipulated every second of your life even unto the box they plant you in the ground with. All of us are tools of the mysterious oligarchy with the oil industry at its peak. Every bit of advertising, every law, every thought you have is controlled by the oligarchy. Electing Obama is a sellout to the oligarchy who have profited from Bush's run so deeply your petty little minds cannot conceive of it. There is only one god and profit is its prophet. God, religion, democracy--grow up you fools. They will nullify Obama within months; yes, the opposite is much, much worse, but, believe me, in the end, the oligarchy will have all the money, all the power--the last cynical laugh at your suffering and misery.

[kcmookie]

pons1595, Isn't there somebody around who is supposed to make sure you take your meds?

Or maybe it is just time for you to make a new tinfoil hat?

We are all influenced by MSM, but we are also influenced by our friends, coworkers, families & our own ability to think freely. The evil empire may exist, but I think it mostly exists in your head.....

[mommamia526]

Palin and McCain do not take any questions. McCain *knows how to do this and that*, but he never explains how. He also knows where Osama bin Laden is, but tells no one. They are so dumb with the illegitimate Joe the Plumber and others, that we would not want to vote for them. The labelthrowing and inuendo and outright slander should turn anyone who thinks they believe in god turn away; it is forbidden. It has become a funny show of stooges, complete with a performance on SNL. Who can take it seriously? The government should be about serving the people, and not the other way around, or clowing around to amuse the *uneducated*, so we will ask questions. If you do not answer the questions, you get a failing grade. If you do not know enough to answer the questions, you also get a failing grade. We should talk about the issues. Michelle Obama is talking about the issues, and you can ask questions in two townhall meetings, one on We 22, (economy), and the next one on Thu 23, both at 5 pm Eastern. There will be specialists on the program. Check the Obama website to see if it is announced.

[jobecky20]

Well if these are the folks he pals around with, then I think I will stick with Bush-Cheney. And I never thought those words would come out of my mouth.

Vote for Obama/Biden!

[Plowboy]

Those troglodytes stick together, don't they?
Even "Joe the Plumber" is related to Keating's son-in-law!
But troglodytes asare what they are; humans should be careful in dealing with them. It always hurts when they contaminate our behavior.
Look at our economy.
Look at our slime politics.
Look at the ignorance they extoll. (How they hate intelligence and intelligent people!)
Look at McCain's family values!
Look at the violent hateful followers he is so proud of!