McCain and Sche­une­mann dur­ing the campaign

Kudos to TPM­Muck­raker for look­ing into [Randy Scheunemann’s record on Iraq](http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/07/mccain_advisors_horrifying_ira.php). Sche­une­mann is Sen. John McCain’s chief for­eign pol­icy strate­gist and a spokesman, but he’s also part of the Project for the New Amer­i­can Cen­tury, helped draft the let­ter mak­ing regime change on Iraq offi­cial U.S. pol­icy after 1998, a man who saw WMDs under every Iraqi rock and peb­ble and, per­haps most damn­ingly, a backer of Ahmad Cha­l­abi, [who did a pretty good job of snook­er­ing the U.S. into invad­ing Iraq](http://www.back-to-iraq.com/2004/02/chalabi-to-us-thanks-suckers.php).

To me, all of Scheunemann’s sins pale com­pared to his back­ing of Cha­l­abi, a man who not only lied to get the U.S. to take down his neme­sis, Sad­dam Hus­sein, but might also have given infor­ma­tion to the Ira­ni­ans that [Amer­ica had cracked their codes](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E4DE1431F931A35755C0A9629C8B63). Cha­l­abi denies any wrong doing.

Josh Mar­shall and his team com­plain that the main­stream media (what­ever that is these days) have ignored or glossed over Scheunemann’s appalling track record. Usu­ally, when a blog com­plains about this, it’s hooey, but a quick [Google News search](http://www.google.com/news?q=scheunemann%20chalabi) comes up with no major cov­er­age of his past errors in judg­ment. And since this cam­paign seems to be focus­ing on the very per­ti­nent ques­tion of who has the bet­ter judg­ment on Iraq, this seems a valid press inquiry. And if [Obama is going to take heat for his advisors](http://www.google.com/search?sa=N&tab=nw&q=obama%20powers), shouldn’t McCain’s be under sim­i­lar scrutiny?