Election Unspun May 22

McCain's Chief Lobbyist
More than a handful of John McCain's campaign aids have left his campaign in the past week because of their lobbying credentials.  One lobbied for the Saudi Arabia government, two lobbied for Burmese led junta.  One of McCain's top aids, Charlie Black, is a well known Republican lobbyist in Washington that has worked on every Presidential campaign since 1972.  He refuses to step down, claiming he is not receiving any compensation from his lobbying firm and claiming it's a non issue, that no one outside of Washington cares if he's a lobbyist.  Moveon.org has released an advertising campaign calling for his resignation.

For more on Charlie Black, we turn to PR Watch dot org's Judith Siers Poisson and Diane Farsetta.

That was Judith Siers Poisson and Diane Farsetta of PRWATCH.ORG

For all their differences, presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain have this in common:  one of their top campaign advisers is an executive at the Burson-Marsteller public relations firm.  In Clinton's case, it's Mark Penn, who embarrassed the campaign by meeting with Colombian officials as part of his firm's attempts to promote the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.  In McCain's case, it's Charlie Black [link: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charles_R._Black%2C_Jr.], the head of Burson-Marsteller's lobbying wing, BKSH & Associates [link:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=BKSH_%26_Associates_Worldwide].

Charlie Black has been called the consummate Republican insider.  He's worked on every Republican presidential campaign since 1972.  But he's also one of Washington, DC's top lobbyists.  Many of his corporate and foreign government clients are rather unsavory.  In March, Black stopped working at his lobbying firm, in part to avoid potential conflicts or embarrassments for the McCain campaign.

For example, BKSH lobbies to get earmarks, or special government funding, for defense contractors -- a practice McCain opposes.  The firm also helped push the United States into war with Iraq, by lobbying for Ahmed Chalabi [link: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ahmed_Chalabi] and his Iraqi National Congress, the main sources of false claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.  Black and his firm have also defended the military contractor Blackwater [link: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Blackwater_USA].  And in the 1980's, Black lobbied on behalf of the brutal Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi.  According to one former U.S. official, Black's "hawkish Congressional lobbying for more military aid" [link: http://harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002843] wound up prolonging the bloody Angolan civil war, costing thousands more people their lives.