Benchmarks and Deadlines
May 18th, 2008The biggest reason I gave up my ambition to work as an attorney was because I never wanted to be in a position where I had to defend an evil man because he was paying my lawfirm to do it. With that in mind, I recently had a conversation with a man about Ramsey Clark, and I told him how shameful it is that a former Attorney General of the United States would provide legal counsel to Kim Jung or Saddam Hussein; he said, “Well, don’t deposed despots have the right to legal counsel?” and I said, Sure. “But not American Attorney Generals.” That was the first thing that came to mind when I read this controversy.
MoveOn.org is out with a new web video that calls on McCain to fire top advisor Charlie Black, whose lobbying deals it links to a series of rogue leaders. The ad features haunting black-and-white photos of the consequences of the regimes of Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Mobuto Sese Seko of Zaire, both heads of governments that Black’s lobbying firm once represented. (Black stepped down from his role at firm BKSH & Associates in March of 2008 to serve McCain’s campaign full-time.)
A spokesman for the GOP called the MoveOn ad an “outrageous personal smear job” and blamed the Democratic Party’s likely new standard-bearer for failing to control its foot soldiers. “Barack Obama’s failure to stop his closest supporters from running these kinds of attacks is evidence of his weak leadership and undermines everything his campaign is supposed to be about,” RNC spokesman Alex Conant said.
Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan responded to that. “John McCain’s failure to stop his closest advisors from advocating on behalf of some of the most corrupt governments, dictators and tyrants in the world is evidence of his failed judgment and his inability to change the way Washington works and bring the change we need,” he said.
As I’ve hinted, I do not believe that Americans should be representing war criminals, but that is not what this situation is. The two campaign attacks on one another are ridiculous, and they should each be ashamed of themselves for engaging in such petty, dishonest and distorted argumentation, as it’s clear that this man was not representing evil men and it is absurd to claim that Obama can control groups not directly his own. Welcome to the general election, folks, and there’s only half a year to go.