The Man in the Middle

Kudos to TPMMuckraker for looking into Randy Scheunemann’s record on Iraq. 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.

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. 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 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, shouldn’t McCain’s be under similar scrutiny?