Adviser Watch: Sarah Palin's Brain Trust to Nowhere

By GottaLaff

TPM has a very informative post up about who's pulling MoldMe McNeedsHelp's marionette strings:

As Sarah Palin relaunches her image for the next stage of her political career, there's a small set of advisers who are shaping the former governor's policy positions and public persona.

The group, a brain trust of sorts, includes Randy Scheunemann, the lobbyist who advised McCain on foreign policy and was one of the architects of the Iraq War, and Kim Daniels, a little-known conservative attorney who specializes in "rights of conscience" health care issues.

And she complains about President Obama's "ties to lobbyists"? Really?

Oh, and let's not forget the former Jew-counting Nixonite, Fred Malek:

Fred Malek: An extremely successful private equity investor who served as an aide to President Nixon (and famously played a central role in the Nixon Jew-counting episode in the early 1970s), Malek describes himself as a friend of Palin. The Times reports that he has been advising Palin on "political matters."

More of her merry band-o'-weenies: Robert Barnett, who advised George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Benazir Bhutto, and Bob Woodward; and the ubiquitous Mary Matalin.

Much more info about her inner circle, aka her Brainless Trust, can be found here.

Randy Scheunemann denies firing; Rahm Emanuel accepts Chief of Staff job

By GottaLaff

What a miserable mess Gramm-pa McCain's gang is. Yesterday I posted that Rogue Randy was canned. Today he denies it:

McCain’s presidential bid has ended, but the fireworks from inside his former campaign continue to make news: evidence is mounting that senior adviser Randy Scheunemann wasn’t fired, as several internal sources had suggested, but the target of a deliberate whispering campaign.

Top McCain adviser Mark Salter told CNN Thursday that Scheunemann, the campaign’s senior foreign policy adviser, was not fired.

Campaign manager Rick Davis denied a report he had fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading "disinformation" about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials.

"My impression is there is some silly score settling being done," Davis told CNN. "Randy was not fired."

Scheunemann himself said sources who said he had been dismissed were lying.

"I was not fired,” he said Thursday. “Anybody who says so is either lying or delusional and is certainly a whack job."

There's the WJ word again: Whack job. And gee, Rogue Randy the target of a whispering campaign? The kind McCain used against Max Cleland? Welcome to Cleland's world, Rogue Randy.

By the way, Rahm Emanuel accepted the job of Chief of Staff, per MSNBC and Politico.
UPDATE:

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), "a wily, aggressive West Wing strategist under President Bill Clinton, has accepted the post of White House chief of staff for President-elect Barack Obama," reports Politico.

"The appointment was the first Obama offered after his election, and Emanuel pondered the opportunity for about 24 hours. Friends said Emanuel accepted the job because he thought it was important to serve this historic administration despite the potential strain on his wife, Amy Rule, and their three children, who live in the Chicago area. "

UPDATE:

Former Obama chief strategist David Axelrod has accepted the position of Senior Adviser in the White House, sources tell ABC News.

McCain senior advisor Scheunemann fired for "trashing" staff

By GottaLaff

D'oh! There go the Republicans eating their own again:

Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign policy adviser to John McCain, was fired from the Arizona senator's campaign last week for what one aide called "trashing" the campaign staff, three senior McCain advisers tell CNN.

One of the aides tells CNN that campaign manager Rick Davis fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading "disinformation" about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials.

"He was positioning himself with Palin at the expense of John McCain's campaign message," said one of the aides.

Can we call him Rogue Randy now? Huh? Can we? Huh? Huh? ::jumping up and down, clapping::

Senior campaign officials blame Schuenemann specifically for stories about the way Wallace and chief campaign strategist Steve Schmidt mishandled Palin's rollout — stories that the campaign says threw them off message in the critical final weeks of the campaign.

Ohhh, so that's what threw them off. I thought it was their entire platform combined with a nasty, hateful, vicious strategy. Silly moi.

But good for them for firing Rogue Randy for pallin' around with Palin when it could have been for something trivial, like say.... lobbying for Georgia while advising their candidate. Once again, their stunning judgment is trumped only by their wisdom, fine taste, and stellar character.

Gramm-pa McCain's chief foreign policy advisor to Ambinder: "It is bulls*** ..."

By GottaLaff

Keith Olbermann (or was it Rachel?) wondered out loud yesterday if perhaps IWRC* Palin was playing the base against Gramm-pa, and setting herself up for a 2012 run. Marc Ambinder wrote about it, and now, ooooo, Randy Scheunemann's ma-a-ad. In part, from Ambinder's piece:

There's a faction within the McCain campaign has begun to whisper about Gov. Sarah Palin to reporters. The faction includes staff members and advisers who consult with staff members. It does not seem to include any members of the senior staff, although the definition of the senior staff here is a bit elastic.

This faction has come to believe that Palin, perhaps unwittingly subconsciously or otherwise, has begun to play Sen. McCain off of the base, consistently and deliberately departed from the campaign's message of the day in ways that damage McCain. ("palling around with terrorists" was a line that escaped HQ's vetting... Palin's criticism of the campaign for pulling out of Michigan was greeted by anger internally... Palin's expressed opinion that Rev. Wright is a legitimate issue -- which subtly knocks McCain for not raising it -- was perceived as an attempt to preemptively blame McCain's wobbliness for his loss, which would theoretically enhance Palin's standing with the base.)

Today's response from Riled Randy:

In response to this morning's post about an anti-Palin faction developing with the McCain campaign and among Republicans, Randy Scheunemann, McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, e-mails:

Just read your post. This is on the record. This is cleared by HQ. It is a fact that Barack Obama was palling around with terrorists. It was a fact before Governor Palin said it in a fully vetted speech and it is fact today. It is bullshit to claim or write anything else.

Some-bo-dy hit Mr. Nerve.

Gramm-pa McCain's Advisers Freaked Out by Al Qaeda Preference for McCain

By GottaLaff

Al Qaeda has made their choice, and the Gramm-patians are freaking out. Spencer Ackerman:

I just got off a conference call held by the McCain campaign to deny that Al Qaeda, contrary to reports in the AP and the Washington Post, is rooting for their man. To describe the call as panicked would be an understatement.

Jim Woolsey, the former CIA director who publicly connected Iraq to the 9/11 attacks without any evidence in 2001, and senior foreign-policy adviser Randy Scheunemann spent more time whining about the Washington Post’s standards of fairness than on the logic of why Al Qaeda might prefer Sen. John McCain. “An amazing piece of journalism, and I use journalism in quotation marks,” Scheunemann said, going on to list barely approving quotes of Sen. Barack Obama from Hamas, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, which he said he wasn’t going “to characterize.” Woolsey, for his part, peered into the mind of what he called “one individual Islamist blogger from one terrorist Islamist blog” and determined that he was “clearly trying to damage John McCain” and “not speaking from his heart.”

I haven't seen this much hand-wringing since IWRC* Palin blew her third attempt to define the vice presidency. Oh wait. That was only yesterday.

What was absent from the call, oddly enough, was any discussion about why Al Qaeda might want McCain to win. And there the case is simple enough. Al Qaeda prefers an indefinite U.S. occupation of Iraq and a bellicose U.S. all across the Muslim world to radicalize Muslims to its terrorist cause and drain the U.S. of its financial wealth — what Osama bin Laden calls his “bleed to bankruptcy” strategy. [...]

Yet the idea of Al Qaeda preferring a U.S. strategy that strengthens it confounded the McCain camp. “It is ridiculous to believe that in its heart of hearts, Al Qaeda wants John McCain to be the president,” Woolsey said. “It’s ludicrous.” But the only thing that’s ludicrous is Woolsey’s expectation that the American public will keep falling for this sort of misdirection by the same blinkered analysts who blundered the U.S. into Iraq in the first place.

13 more days.

John Sidney McCain's Top Advisor Lobbied Against Bill to Keep Guns From Terrorists

By GottaLaff

Let us not forget J Sid's bff Randy Scheunemann in all the din and wacky fun of the Democratic convention:

We knew Randy Scheunemann, John McCain's top foreign policy adviser, was into guns. After all, in 1997 he was arrested for having a shotgun and several rounds of ammunition in his car on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol. And in addition to his extensive lobbying work on behalf of former Soviet bloc countries, he's also a longtime lobbyist for gun-rights groups. But it now looks like, for Scheunemann, doing the bidding of the gun lobby takes precedence over efforts to combat terrorism.

Newsweek reports that, according to registration documents filed by Scheuenemann's lobbying firm, Orion Strategies, Scheunemann lobbied on behalf of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) against a bill that aims to close a gun-control loophole that inhibits the government from stopping people on terrorist watch-lists from buying guns. According to Newsweek, "the bill was inspired by an official audit covering a five-month period in 2004 which found that, because of the loophole, the Feds had to greenlight 35 out of 44 cases where a gun buyer was on a terrorist watch list." [...]

Sen. McCain has not taken a position on the bill. His campaign would not tell Newsweek whether he supports it, or whether Scheunemann had ever lobbied McCain on gun-control issues.

Tell me again why we are not calling him out on this? Loudly? From the rooftops?

While John Sidney McCain uses Georgia as a campaign issue, people are dying

By GottaLaff

If Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is mentioning John McCain in his speeches, and calling on McCain to do more for Georgia ("We are all Georgians now" much, J Sid?), does that mean McCain is being his usual bellicose, provocative self purely for political gain at the expense of thousands who are dying? Sure looks that way.

Is Randy Scheunemann intentionally initiating this conflict, using it as a campaign issue, while we're risking world war? That's what Thom Hartmann is starting to believe.

Scheunemann is making money, J Sid is portraying himself as "strong and decisive" while people are being killed. All in a day's work.

More about this:

The Washington Post reports today that Sen. John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann may have used his position in the McCain campaign for his own financial benefit by advancing the interests of his former lobbying client, the Georgian government:

Sen. John McCain’s top foreign policy adviser 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 [Orion Strategies] partly owned by the adviser, Randy Scheunemann, signed a $200,000 contract to continue providing strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.

The McCain campaign responded saying, “Georgia’s lobbying contract with Orion Strategies had no bearing on the candidate’s decision to speak with President Mikheil Saakashvili and did not influence his statement,” they said. [...]

Rather than simply advocating on behalf of the Georgian government, is Scheunemann, in fact, able to manipulate McCain’s policy statements for his own financial gain?

There's more at Think Progress.

McCain's top foreign policy advisor lobbyist for Georgian government

By GottaLaff

Of course, this story won't make it to the airwaves, not with the John Edwards story out there. Not with any story out there, including what color undies Britney's not wearing on any given day:

The situation on the Russia-Georgia border today is a undoubtedly a complicated situation. But it would be difficult for John McCain to give a credible response since his top foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, was until recently a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government.

J Sid's lobbyist ties have tentacles that reach into every nook and cranny of politics, of policy, and of every facet of this campaign. Yet, they continue to be largely ignored by the media.

Top McCain adviser, lobbyist Scheunemann linked to Bush library "cash for access" scandal

By GottaLaff

John Sidney McShady should fire his entire team. He'll never dig his way out of all these holes. Remember the scandal where people would pay to meet with Bush officials? And all that money went to the Bush liberry (as Keith Olbermann would say)?

Earlier this month, the Sunday Times caught longtime Bush associate Stephen Payne on tape offering access to top Bush administration officials in exchange for “six-figure donations to the private library being set up to commemorate Bush’s presidency.”

Well, guess who's involved! (Please follow the link. This next part is out of context)

The Times reports that a top adviser to Sen. John McCain, lobbyist Randy Scheunemann, has direct ties to the company that is alleged to have funneled the funds:

In a further link, Randy Scheunemann, chief foreign policy and national security adviser to John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, was listed in the WSE brochure as part of its executive team. Scheunemann and Associates, his lobbying firm, is reported as having represented the Caspian Alliance in 2005.

At the undercover meeting last week, Payne said Scheunemann had been “working with me on my payroll for five of the last eight years”. When confronted over the link to KMG, Payne declined to comment.

I wonder if this is just a symptom of Scheuenemann's mental recession. That's what happens when you're on the McShady scandal horizon.