Did Eastern Europe Pay McCain to Hate Russia?
Republican presidential nominee John McCain is well known for his adversarial, even anachronistic, approach to Russia.
Straight talk, right?
Perhaps.
But, asks Mark Benjamin today on Salon.com, could his bluster have had less to do with the Republican base than with the lobbying connections of a close advisor?
The architect behind McCain’s hard-line Russia policy, including kicking it out of the G8, is Randy Scheunemann.
And Scheunemann has until early this year been a long-time lobbyist for Georgia, Latvia, Romania and Macedonia, receiving over $2 million in pay from them.
Moreover, “much of Scheunemann’s work focused on paving the way into the NATO fold. Two of Scheunemann’s clients, Latvia and Romania, were admitted to full NATO member status in 2004, after which they ceased paying him”.
Of course, that does not mean that any of these countries paid Scheunemann to influence McCain to enact an anti-Russian agenda. However, “‘those are countries whose advantage it is to point the finger at a Russian threat, particularly Georgia,’ explained Thomas Simons, ambassador to Poland under George H.W. Bush and to Pakistan under Bill Clinton”.
Crucially, asks Harvard’s Dmitry Gorenburg, if McCain and Scheunemann “‘have had an association for a long time, how do you tell if it is because they think alike, or one has told the other how to think because he is getting paid?’”
McCain likes to say that unlike Bush, who claims to have looked into Putin’s eyes and seen his soul, he saw the letters K, G and B instead.
But maybe what he really saw were the letters U, S, and D?
June 10th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Actually I think the links between McCain’s inner circle and Russia issues is more complex and much more surprising than most believe.
True, Scheunemann worked with Georgia, but even the new DNC attack ad against McCain highlights his meetings with Putin loyalist billionaire Oleg Deripaska (who of course can’t even get a visa to America).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGXIuNthJ7Q
Just as important as Scheunemann’s work, but much more embarrassing and contradictory to McCain’s policy line is Rick Davis’s connections to Viktor Yanukovich - his firm was being paid $35,000 a month to get positive coverage for the party in U.S. media.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121072447597990171.html
Also, any conversation about McCain’s policy people on Russia should include Stephen Biegun, who has headed up the U.S.-Russia Business Council, is a VP of Ford Motor Company (which has significant investments in Russia), and who in general has advocated a very pro-Russia approach.
http://www.robertamsterdam.com/2008/04/getting_to_know_mccains_brain.htm
In short, I think McCain’s bark is a lot worse than his bite on Russia. The populist and aggressive message on Russia sells well to his red meat base, but if he were to win, we’d probably have the third Bush term - with no dramatic action being taken toward Moscow … only some occasional dramatic words.