What do Blackwater, Ahmed Chalabi, Philip Morris, General Electric, and AT&T have in common? [View All]

Charlie Black is a senior advisor deep inside the McCain campaign. What kind of affiliations could be informing his advice to McCain? Let us take a brief look:

Black has been a key player in the Washington scene for close to three decades, holding his first high level position as a senior advisor in the Reagan administration. Black then went on to be a senior advisor to Bush (41) and played a key role in the Bush (43) 2000 Presidential election campaign. He also has been heavily involved in a large number of Republican Congressional election campaigns. However the interesting connections in Black’s past relating to McCain’s campaign effort come from his extremely lucrative lobbying career.

Black held the chair position at BKSH & Associates until March of this year, when he finally made the decision to publicly step down as chairman and shift all of his energy to working in McCain’s Presidential campaign. (It was Charlie Black whom Obama referred to when stating that McCain had lobbyist running their firms from the campaign bus.) In the years that Black worked at BKSH, their client list contained the mega-giants of the American corporate world, giants such as Philip Morris, General Electric, AT&T and General Motors. While these connections are eye-opening to the extent that they may be a window into just how committed the McCain campaign is to distancing themselves from corporate America, it is not until one looks further down the list of Black’s former clients that it becomes a truly chilling experience.

The two clients on Black’s former client list that are the most troubling seem to be Blackwater and Ahmed Chalabi.

While Black’s work with Blackwater was relatively brief, it came at a pivotal moment in the life of the private military contractor’s existence. BKSH was the chief consultant for Blackwater during their testimony before Congress.

http://www.politicallore.com/election-2008/mccains-looming-charlie-black-problem/264