The Friend Of My Friend Is...

...seizing the aid planes flying into Myanmar, apparently.

The man picked by the John McCain campaign to run the 2008 Republican
National Convention resigned Saturday after a report that his lobbying firm used
to represent the military regime in Myanmar.

It seems that John McCain, the Lobbyists' Friend, had to throw a friend under the bus this weekend. That friend, Doug Goodyear, was the sole US rep for the military junta in Myanmar in 2002 and 2003. Goodyear says in his defense that they only defended the killers and rapists for a little while and it didn't happen recently.

Newsweek said the firm drafted news releases praising Burma's efforts to
curb the drug trade and denouncing claims by the Bush administration that the
regime engaged in rape and other abuses.
"It was our only foreign representation, it was for a short tenure, and it was six years ago," Newsweek quoted Goodyear as saying. The magazine said Goodyear added that the junta's record in the current cyclone crisis is "reprehensible."

If the Bush administration is calling your actions corrupt, it's a fair bet that they're corrupt. These people know corruption, folks. But Goodyear's firm was willing to put a happy face on the regime.

That isn't the McCain Campaign's big concern, however. The defense of the indefensible is old hat for them. They need to keep the sheen on McCain's "Maverick" badge as long as possible.

The Newsweek article also reported that some of Goodyear's allies worry that
worry the choice of Goodyear could fuel perceptions that McCain is surrounded by
lobbyists. DCI Group earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil,
General Motors and other clients, the report said.

McCain represents business as usual in Washington as well as in the Middle East but he'd like you to believe otherwise. What could Doug Goodyear possibly have done for McCain?

Newsweek also reported DCI has been a pioneer in running "independent"
expenditure campaigns by so-called 527 groups, the kind of operations that
McCain has denounced in his battle for campaign finance reform.

Butthey are the kind of group that's really effective in getting out a smear if the candidate wants to keep his hands clean.

Some people are pioneers in cancer research or pioneers in finding ways to bring groups together. Some are pioneers in putting lipstick on a junta or poking holes in campaign finance law to coarsen the process. Everybody is good at something, I guess.