Barack Obama said yesterday that “Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war.” John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann criticized the apparent moral equivalence in Obama’s statement: “That’s kind of like saying after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, that Kuwait and Iraq need to show restraint, or like saying in 1968 [when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia] … that the Czechoslovaks should show restraint”. Scheunemann is now being attacked by both the Obama campaign and a PR firm working for the Kremlin because he has worked on behalf of the Republic of Georgia. Ben Smith reports:
A public relations firm working for the Russian Federation pointed out Scheunemann’s lobbying past to reporters – a sign that McCain’s stance is not, for better or worse, being welcomed in Moscow – as did Obama’s campaign. “John McCain’s top foreign policy adviser lobbied for, and has a vested interest in, the Republic of Georgia and McCain has mirrored the position advocated by the government,” said Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan, noting that the “appearance of a conflict of interest” was a consequence of McCain’s too-close ties to lobbyists.
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds hit back with this statement:
The Obama campaign’s attacks on Randy Scheunemann are disgraceful. Mr. Scheunemann proudly represented a small democracy that is one of our closest allies in a very dangerous region. Today, many are dead and Georgia is in crisis, yet the Obama campaign has offered nothing more than cheap and petty political attacks that are echoed only by the Kremlin. The reaction of the Obama campaign to this crisis, so at odds with our democratic allies and yet so bizarrely in sync with Moscow, doesn’t merely raise questions about Senator Obama’s judgment–it answers them.
You can find Michael Goldfarb’s take at The McCain Report.
