He works for McCain...and Dictators
Noah T. Winer, MoveOn
John McCain says he's a defender of democracy. But the folks running his campaign have been playing for the other team.
Two of John McCain's senior campaign staff were forced to resign this week after revelations that their lobbying firm was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to represent Burma's brutal military dictatorship.1
And it gets worse—turns out this goes all the way to the top. Charlie Black, McCain's campaign chairman, ran a lobbying firm that represented brutal dictators like Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire—along with terrorist rebel Jonas Savimbi in Angola. Together, these men have been responsible for massive human suffering.2
And for good measure, Charlie Black has represented war profiteer Blackwater Worldwide and Iraqi fraudster Ahmed Chalabi.3
John McCain has a lobbyist problem, and we thought he could use your advice. What should Senator McCain do about his top adviser, Charlie Black? We'll release the results to the media—and forward your advice to Senator McCain himself. And we're working on a hard-hitting web ad about Charlie Black that we'll release soon.
Click below to choose which message to send to John McCain:
Fire all the lobbyists. Fire Charlie Black, plus all 112 lobbyists running your campaign,4 including campaign co-chair Tom Loeffler, who has represented the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a notorious human rights abuser.5
Tell us what you think and spread the word! This survey's kind of funny, but our goal is deadly serious. If hundreds of thousands of us weigh in, we can show the media that John McCain's campaign has a growing liability: the fact that his inner circle is filled with lobbyists who've worked for everything he claims to be against.
Thanks for all you do.
–Noah, Karin, Ilyse, Peter, Justin, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
P.S. McCain's campaign staff have too many connections to dictators to list in this email. It's unbelievable. But the non-partisan reform group Public Campaign Action Fund created a great fact sheet laying it all out:
Sources:
1. "A Lobbying Firm and Its McCain Ties," MSNBC, May 12, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3654&id=12653-2269734-JQiWkH&t=5
2. "John McCain's Lobbyist Connections," Public Campaign Action Fund
http://www.firethelobbyists.com/facts.html
3. Ibid.
4. "McCain's Lobbyists in Trouble for Foreign Lobbying," Progressive Media USA, May 11, 2008
http://www.mccainsource.com/mccain_fact_check?id=0007
5. "McCain Aides Are Tied," New York Sun, May 12, 2008
http://www2.nysun.com/national/mccain-aides-are-tied/
"Obama Calls on Rice to Address Human Rights Violations in Saudi Arabia," November 19, 2007
http://obama.senate.gov/press/071119-obama_calls_on_21/
"Saudi Arabia," Human Rights Watch World Report, 2007
http://hrw.org/englishwr2k7/docs/2007/01/11/saudia14717.htm
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