Via Satyah Khanna at Think Progress:
Yesterday, Murray Waas revealed that the head of Sen. John McCain’s transition team, power lobbyist William Timmons, was involved in a lobbying effort on behalf of Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s “to ease international sanctions against his regime.”
Today, MSNBC’s David Schuster asked McCain spokesperson Ben Porritt about the revelations. Porrit claimed that the campaign has had no associations with lobbyists, quickly changing the subject to Bill Ayers:
I’m actually not too familiar with his history, but what I do know is that throughout our campaign, we’ve talked about this a lot, we’ve had no associations with any lobbyists on our campaign, and I think there’s questionable associations with Barack Obama that needs to be addressed before we even get into talking about the transition:
“You have no associations with Charlie Black?” asked Schuster incredulously. “I mean, he’s a lobbyist.” Watch it:
Timmons is the chairman emeritus of Timmons and Company, an influential lobbying firm in Washington. In addition to helping Saddam avoid sanctions and trying to profit off Iraqi oil, Timmons has also lobbied for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the American Petroleum Institute. Time Magazine called Timmons “a Washington institution.”
It is absurd to claim McCain has “had no associations with any lobbyists.” He has at least 164 former lobbyists running his campaign, fundraising, and setting his policy agenda — including Charlie Black, Rick Davis, and Randy Scheunemann.
RSS Feed
October 16th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Republicans are hypocrites first, foremost and always!
October 16th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
David lets him get away with this? “It is too early to talk about the transition team.” “Fair enough.”
It is ok to talk incessantly about a guy that Obama served on a Republican philanthropest’s board with, but it is out of bounds to talk about a guy who McCain has chosen to lead his transition team? There are certainly different rule books for Republican and Democratic candidates. I wonder if David even thinks of himself as a journalist.
October 16th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
ben’s thought bubble (oh, shit oh, shit stay on message stay on message bring it back to obama in less than 2 words come on come on!!!! whewwwww straight talk baby!!! oh, yeah no follow up on that yeah i rock this!! eat it schuster)
October 16th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
where do they get these work experience people?
October 16th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Actually,instead of “fair enough,” a better response would have been:
*long pause* “Oh, I see. You’d rather not talk about that then.
Fair enough. Moving right along…”
October 16th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
There is a blatant double standard in the main stream media. Obama can be grilled for weeks about Ayers but not one peep about McCain and G. Gordon Libby. Timmons, Black, Davis…. the worst of K Street’s power brokers running McCain’s campaign who McCain professes to dethrone when he’s elected and all Schuster can say is “Fair enough.”
How about hypocrisy???
October 16th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Actually,instead of “fair enough,” a better response would have been:
“O.K. then why don’t we talk about the 163 OTHER lobbyists who are involved in the McCain campaign?”
Then list the names one by one and state how they are involved, with a pause between each to ask Ben Porritt if he’s an idiot or just an outright liar.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:24 am
The republican party needs to be destroyed clean out the viper nest. All the people who really make up the pucks are greedy business men and chamber of commerance little greedy owners. time to get rid of a anti american party of communists.
October 17th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
john podhoretz, obama’s transition chief, started his own lobbying firm in 1988! if what you copied from the huffington post were true (or you did your own research or writing)this would have been exposed in the early 1990’s or sometime in the intervening 15 years…sorry to burst your bubble…go write about something else…