Judge Him By The Company He Keeps: 1

by hilzoy

Since McCain's Convention CEO and one of his campaign's regional managers resigned when it came out that they had been lobbying for the government of Myanmar, I figured it was only a matter of time before more information about the clients of the many lobbyists who populate the McCain campaign began to come out. And lo! here's a rundown on some of them.

I'm going to concentrate on Charlie Black. He's generally described as McCain's chief political advisor. He was the chair of BKSH & Associates, a lobbying firm, until last month, when he announced he was stepping down to work on McCain's campaign fulltime. There's a good profile of him here:

"“The Republican Party’s quintessential company man,” as one friend calls him, Mr. Black has worked in every Republican presidential campaign since 1972, and sometimes a couple each season, being diplomat enough to get along with both sides in some of the fiercest rivalries.

In between, and often at the same time, he has parlayed his political connections to become one of Washington’s most successful lobbyists, making him an embodiment of the city’s permanent establishment.

Now 60, Mr. Black is easing Mr. McCain into his new role as standard bearer for a party that the senator has clashed with and even snubbed over the years. Mr. Black has done so in the quiet way that has made him such an enduring player in Washington."

Here's Ken Silverstein quoting an offline piece from Spy, which has a different take on Black's record:

"An indispensable read about Black’s past–sadly not available online–was a wonderful 1992 piece by Art Levine published in Spy magazine, titled “Publicists of the Damned.” (...) Back then Black was the lead partner at the lobbying firm called Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly. (...)

Spy reviewed the operations of a number of top beltway lobbying firms and ranked Black, Manafort as the “sleaziest” of the firms it surveyed, giving it a “blood-on-the-hands” rating of four. That was a full bloody hand more than the rating accorded to lobbyist Edward van Kloberg, whose clients included Saddam Hussein and Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania.

Black, Manafort’s own clients at the time included Mobuto Sese Seko of Zaire, one of the most kleptocratic rulers of all time, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, also known for stealing a few billion dollars, and the murderous Angolan rebels known as UNITA. “The well-compensated flacks at Black, Manafort stand at the pinnacle of organizational apologism,” Spy noted. “Name a corrupt despot, and Black Manafort will name the account.”"

Over the years, Black has represented some truly dreadful people. In what follows, I will leave aside domestic clients, like Blackwater, Philip Morris, and Chiquita (which pleaded guilty to paying Colombian terrorists last year.) I will also ignore Black's work on behalf of dictators who are bad but not truly horrific: for instance, Gnassingbé Eyadéma of Togo. I'm just going to focus on two groups: first, Black's work for people who used disinformation to get us into the Iraq war, and second, the truly horrible dictators Charlie Black represented.

(1) Chalabi and the Lincoln Group: According to this NYT piece, Black's firm "worked for Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress, as well as the Lincoln Group, hired by the Pentagon to generate positive stories about the Iraq war." (Though his work for Chalabi was actually paid for by, well, us: the US taxpayers.)

The Lincoln Group, as you might recall, was an amateurish group hired by the Pentagon to plant pro-American stories -- some true and some "deceptive" -- in the Iraqi press. My favorite of their proposals was "an anti-terrorist comedy based on "The Three Stooges."" For some unfathomable reason, that proposal was rejected.

Ahmed Chalabi, the snake who used disinformation to help convince the US to invade Iraq, and who has since come under suspicion of being an 'agent of influence' for Iran, is presumably familiar to our readers. Here's a 2003 article on Black's work for him:

"Consider BKSH & Associates, the firm run by well-known GOP strategist Charlie Black. Over the past four years, BKSH has been boosting the interests of the Iraqi National Congress, whose leader, Ahmed Chalabi, was a key anti-Saddam opponent and now sits on the newly formed Iraqi Governing Council. Besides helping the INC - which has enjoyed extensive backing from the Pentagon but is quite controversial at the State Department and the CIA - BKSH has started to help open doors for such U.S. companies as AT&T, Cummins Engine, and Fluor that are seeking business in Iraq.

"Due to our past representation of the INC," says Black, "we know and have worked with a lot of people who will be in the provisional government. We have a number of clients who are interested in doing business in Iraq." Black adds that his firm is "strongly considering" opening an office in Baghdad."

And:

"BKSH had a special interest in Iraq. The firm was a key member of the coterie of talking heads, lobbyists, and politicians pushing for war in Iraq that centered around Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC), the anti-Saddam exile group, which was itself a BKSH client. (The lobbying firm provided the exiles with lobbying and media services; its staffers acted as the INC's spokesmen, brokered meetings and deals with Washington insiders, and arranged Chalabi's trips to the United States.)"

BKSH even won an award for its PR campaign on behalf of Chalabi and the invasion of Iraq:

"The last week of October 2003 had been particularly gory in Baghdad. Rockets tore into the Al-Rashid Hotel, where Paul Wolfowitz lay sleeping on a rare visit. Terrorists destroyed the International Red Cross compound, and then, on Wednesday, October 29, a land mine gutted a US Army Abrams tank outside Baghdad, killing two soldiers. That was the day BKSH and the Iraqi National Congress were honored for their work in the run-up to the war.

The black-tie award ceremony took place far from the violence in Iraq, in London, where more than 1,000 of the public relations industry elite assembled in a ballroom at the luxurious Grosvenor House Hotel. PR Week hosted the event, its annual awards dinner for public relations companies. Burson-Marsteller, whose subsidiary BKSH had carried out the work, was named the winner in the public affairs category. The "Awards Supplement" of PR Week called BKSH's work a "solid, disciplined campaign that is totally deserving of this award." "Of particular importance," said the citation, "was positioning INC founder Dr. Ahmad Chalabi and other Iraqi opposition spokespeople as authoritative political leaders." BKSH "compiled intelligence reports, defector briefings, conferences and seminars.... The PR team also ran a contact-building programme, focusing on the European Union, Downing Street, the Foreign Office and MPs in the UK, matched to a US programme aimed at the White House, the Senate, Congress and the Pentagon."

The awards description does not mention that the funding came entirely from the US government, let alone that many of the campaign's claims turned out to be erroneous."

Minor extra: Black also helped arrange the bizarre coronation ceremony at the Capitol for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

(2) Truly horrible dictators: Those Black represented include: Ferdinand Marcos (the odious dictator of the Philippines), Mobutu Sese Seko (the odious dictator of Zaire), Ibrahim Babangida (the odious dictator of Nigeria), Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (the odious dictator of Equatorial Guinea), Mohamed Siad Barre (the odious dictator of Somalia), and, just to break the pattern, Jonas Savimbi (who plunged Angola into decades of immensely destructive civil war in an unsuccessful attempt to become its odious dictator.)

I'm saving Savimbi for a separate post. Here, some background on the others:

Mobutu Sese Seko: I take it Mobutu, the thuggish kleptocrat who devastated Zaire, needs no introduction. In case I'm wrong, here's a good NYT retrospective. Excerpt:

"Resplendent in his signature leopard-skin cap and carved wooden scepter topped with an eagle, Mr. Mobutu -- through his canny courtship of Western support, destabilization of his neighbors, systematic corruption and grandiose economic schemes -- left Zaire teetering on the brink of economic collapse. His cult of personality rose to such heights that for weeks at a time, Zaire's official press was forbidden to mention the name of any other Zairian than the President himself.

Mr. Mobutu almost singlehandedly invented Zaire, even giving the country its name in replacement of the colonial name, Congo. But his personal appetite for luxury and wealth spawned a system of official corruption so rapacious that he leaves behind a country in ruin, where revenue from lucrative mines has been squandered or squirreled away in foreign bank accounts. Life in a vast country deprived of roads, health care, electricity, telephones and often education has reverted to a brutishness unknown since the 1940's."

(Note: the bank accounts turned out to have a lot less in them than people thought.)

***

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo: Here's the short version:

"As vast offshore oil fields generate hundreds of millions of dollars for tiny Equatorial Guinea, there are few signs of the petroleum boom in the impoverished West African nation. Most of the population lives on about a dollar a day, and a U.S. State Department report found "little evidence that the country's oil wealth is being devoted to the public good." So where has the money gone?

That has been declared a "state secret" by Equatorial Guinea's ruler, Brig. Gen. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. But the Guinean ambassador to the U.S. and other sources close to Obiang say the country's oil funds are held in an account at Riggs Bank in Washington. (...)

Equatorial Guinea's oil production has jumped from just 17,000 barrels per day in 1996 to a current rate of more than 220,000 barrels per day. As a result, the Bush administration has initiated a political thaw with the Obiang regime. In late 2001, President Bush authorized the reopening of the U.S. Embassy in Equatorial Guinea, which had been closed six years earlier, in large part due to the country's horrific human rights record.

There's been little if any improvement since then on that issue."

And then there's this:

"State radio in the tiny west African state of Equatorial Guinea has hailed the nation's leader as "the country's God". (...)

"He can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell because it is God himself, with whom he is in permanent contact, and who gives him this strength," a presidential aide announced on the show."

Note to self: even God needs a lobbyist. Isn't that special?

***

Ferdinand Marcos: Here I should probably just defer to dr ngo, who knows more about the Philippines than I ever will. (Especially since it turns out to be surprisingly hard to find a decent summary of Marcos' human rights record.) However, until dr ngo shows up to correct and/or amplify (as I hope he will):

Ferdinand Marcos was President of the Philippines from 1965 until 1986. He declared martial law in 1972, after which he ruled as a dictator. He was fantastically corrupt: Transparency International put him second on its list of most corrupt leaders, which is pretty impressive, given the competition. His human rights record was dreadful: one historian puts the number of extrajudicial killings under Marcos at 3,257, and the number of people tortured at 35,000; he was successfully sued for "the tortures and killings of nearly 10,000 Filipinos." You can read some of their stories here, or here, or here. Also:

"Marcos inflicted immeasurable damage on democratic values. He offered the Filipino people economic progress and national dignity, but the results were dictatorship, poverty, militarized politics and a politicized military, and greatly increased dependence on foreign governments and banks. His New Society was supposed to eliminate corruption, but when Marcos fled the country in 1986, his suitcases contained, according to a United States customs agent, jewels, luxury items, and twenty-four gold bricks. Estimates of Marcos's wealth ran from a low of US$3 billion to a high of US$30 billion, and even after his death in 1989, no one knew the true value of his estate, perhaps not even his widow.

If Marcos had been merely corrupt, his legacy would have been bad enough, but he broke the spell of democracy. The long evolution of democratic institutions, unsatisfactory though it may have been in some ways, was interrupted. The political culture of democracy was violated. Ordinary Filipinos knew fear in the night. An entire generation came of age never once witnessing a genuine election or reading a free newspaper. Classes that graduated from the Philippine Military Academy were contemptuous of civilians and anticipated opportunities for influence and perhaps even wealth. Marcos's worst nightmare came true when Corazon Aquino used the power of popular opinion to bring him down."

While researching this, I found an email that Steve Clemons posted about Black's work for Marcos. In my experience, Steve Clemons' anonymous sources are usually quite reliable. Note that "Black Manafort" is Black, Manafort, Stone, and Kelly, a previous version of BKSH & Associates. The email reads, in part:

"During the final years of the Marcos regime, Black Manafort had the Marcos lobbying account.

Matt [Freeman] was one of three guys servicing the account in the field.

US policy was undergoing a dramatic shift at the time. Secretary of State George Shultz had quietly persuaded Ronald Reagan that it was time to ditch the Marcos family -- and the Black Manafort retainer from the Marcos family had been hugely increased in an effort to turn this around.

The USG was discreetly funding the Marcos opposition (including the more sedate opposition group led by Cardinal Jaime Sin and the more radical NAMFREL).

One of Matt's tasks was to attempt to document these connections in hopes that they could be used to drive a wedge into Hill support for the administration policy shift.

It was a time of "battling flacks". Cory Aquino, widow of the opposition leader Benigno Aquino who had been murdered by a Marcos thug earlier that year, had retained none other than Mark Malloch Brown as her Washington lobbyist.

Mark and Matt were frequently in and out of the Philippines in those days, each developing sources and feeding material into the SFRC and the HFAC.

Dick Lugar proved central to this story. Shultz won Lugar's support for dropping the Marcos connection. . . provided Marcos could be ousted in an election.

Republican election specialist Eddie Mahe was retained by the USG to analyze and defeat the Marcos election-rigging schemes.

Meanwhile, Matt was among those helping the Marcos family to carry out such schemes."

Charming.

***

Mohamed Siad Barre took control of Somalia in 1969, and remained in power until 1991. The NYT summarizes:

"In May 1988, fierce fighting broke out in the north between the Government and rebels who contended they had been discriminated against by the Siad Barre Government and were fighting for a more democratic Government.

A report commissioned by the State Department and made public in September 1989 said the Somali Army "purposely murdered" at least 5,000 unarmed civilians over a 10-month period in the early phases. The Government denied the allegation.
More than 10,000 people were reported killed in the months that followed, with allegations that the Somali military had bombed towns and strafed fleeing residents.

Amnesty International said in August 1988 that since 1981 the Government had used torture and "widespread arbitrary arrests, ill treatment and summary executions" of civilians suspected of collaborating with the rebels."

From the US Country Study of Somalia:

"Faced with shrinking popularity and an armed and organized domestic resistance, Siad Barre unleashed a reign of terror against the Majeerteen, the Hawiye, and the Isaaq, carried out by the Red Berets (Duub Cas), a dreaded elite unit recruited from among the president's Mareehaan clansmen. (...)

In November 1986, the dreaded Red Berets unleashed a campaign of terror and intimidation on a frightened citizenry. Meanwhile, the ministries atrophied and the army's officer corps was purged of competent career officers on suspicion of insufficient loyalty to the president. In addition, ministers and bureaucrats plundered what was left of the national treasury after it had been repeatedly skimmed by the top family. (...)

The Red Berets systematically smashed the small reservoirs in the area around Galcaio so as to deny water to the Umar Mahamuud Majeerteen sublineages and their herds. In May and June 1979, more than 2,000 Umar Mahamuud, the Majeerteen sublineage of Colonel Ahmad, died of thirst in the waterless area northeast of Galcaio, Garoowe, and Jerriiban. In Galcaio, members of the Victory Pioneers, the urban militia notorious for harassing civilians, raped large numbers of Majeerteen women. In addition, the clan lost an estimated 50,000 camels, 10,000 cattle, and 100,000 sheep and goats. (...)

The military regime conducted savage reprisals against the Isaaq. The same methods were used as against the Majeerteen-- destruction of water wells and grazing grounds and raping of women. An estimated 5,000 Isaaq were killed between May 27 and the end of December 1988. About 4,000 died in the fighting, but 1,000, including women and children, were alleged to have been bayoneted to death. (...)

In the late 1980s, disaffection with the regime set in among the Hawiye who felt increasingly marginalized in the Siad Barre regime. From the town of Beledweyne in the central valley of the Shabeelle River to Buulobarde, to Giohar, and in Mogadishu, the clan was subjected to ruthless assault. Government atrocities inflicted on the Hawiye were considered comparable in scale to those against the Majeerteen and Isaaq. By undertaking this assault on the Hawiye, Siad Barre committed a fatal error. By the end of 1990, he still controlled the capital and adjacent regions but by alienating the Hawiye, Siad Barre turned his last stronghold into enemy territory.

Faced with saboteurs by day and sniper fire by night, Siad Barre ordered remaining units of the badly demoralized Red Berets to massacre civilians. By 1989 torture and murder became the order of the day in Mogadishu. On July 9, 1989, Somalia's Italian-born Roman Catholic bishop, Salvatore Colombo, was gunned down in his church in Mogadishu by an unknown assassin. The order to murder the bishop, an outspoken critic of the regime, was widely believed to have had come from the presidential palace.

On the heels of the bishop's murder came the infamous July 14 massacre, when the Red Berets slaughtered 450 Muslims demonstrating against the arrest of their spiritual leaders. More than 2,000 were seriously injured. On July 15, forty-seven people, mainly from the Isaaq clan, were taken to Jasiira Beach west of the city and summarily executed. The July massacres prompted a shift in United States policy as the United States began to distance itself from Siad Barre."

***

On reflection, that's enough for now. As I said, I had intended to save Savimbi for a subsequent post, and you can probably live without a description of Ibrahim Babangida of Nigeria.

If you think about it, though, Black has represented a more than usually repellent group of dictators. Two of Transparency International's top three kleptocrats in recent history (Marcos and Mobutu); a self-proclaimed God; torturers, murderers, and even someone who deliberately destroys reservoirs in arid country, so people will die of thirst.

I was reminded recently that a couple of months ago, last time he was defending the number of lobbyists who work on his campaign, McCain said:

""These people have honorable records, and they're honorable people, and I'm proud to have them as part of my team," McCain told reporters following a town hall meeting in Indianapolis."

And in the debate at the Reagan Library, he said, as he often has: "I'll rely on people to judge me by the company that I keep."

So judge away. Do you think that it's possible to be the lobbyist for Chalabi, Mobuto, Marcos, Obiang, and Siad Barre, not to mention Blackwater, Philip Morris, and so on, and still be an honorable person? If not, what do you think that the fact that this guy is one of McCain's closest advisors says about him?

Comments

[Anarch]

But he's not an Angry Black Man, so he doesn't count.

[Pae]

He worked allot. I wish I had his money. Peace Corps deals with these dictators every day. They are the only aid allowed in countries because of US and UN sanctions. I don't mind the consulting, but would have to give up other things that I like to do.

I start at $80,000.

[publius]

impressive list

but of course mccain doesn't listen to lobbyists so it's all irrelevant

[Anarch]

Actually, a more substantive question: it's not clear to me from the post, and I haven't the time to check the links, to what degree that Black himself is implicated in the doings of the company. I'd assume that (being a partner and all) he was up to his eyebrows in it, but I'd like to make sure if possible.

[hilzoy]

Anarch: I believe he actually runs the firm, so he has that kind of responsibility. That being the case, he would presumably have veto power over clients, and could easily have decided that going to bat for Marcos (say) was a bridge too far. Given the people he seems not to have had any problem with, though, it's not clear what "a bridge too far" might possibly look like.

He was certainly involved personally with Savimbi (subject of next post.) As for the others -- did he personally manage their accounts? Don't know; suspect not. Did he sign off on the idea of representing them? He would have had to, I think. Did he e.g. make calls on their behalf? Again, I'm not sure, except in the case of Savimbi.

[Harald K]

There's one consolation in all of this: Men like Charlie Black are rare. John McCain may be bad in some respects, but not in a Charlie Black way. The main problem with McCain isn't that he's evil, but that for all his "experience", he is so shockingly naïve about lobbyists and politics in general. I wonder what would happen if he actually got to read the file on Charlie Black (or perhaps see a nice lecture-style presentation by professor Hilzoy). Call me naïve, but I think McCain's corruption is a result of ignorance. Perhaps even he could wake up to the fact that judgement matters more than experience.

[Nell]

Harald: Please. McCain as innocent victim of corrupt, evil lobbyists?

It was U.S. government policy to support these vicious dictators -- because it suited our "strategic interests" or, more nakedly, the interests of our corporate ruling class. The Charlie Blacks of the world are there to sop up the extra buckets of money involved when dictators are given a blank check by our government. They're part of the permanent apparatus of Washington. (And don't kid yourself; there are Democratic Charlie Blacks, too.)

Do you honestly think the U.S. government backed Mobutu for decades because of the slick PR job Black, Manfort did for him? Did we invade and occupy Iraq because BHSK got Ahmed Chalabi so much time with reporters? No.

The PR work is essential for making the position respectable, particularly to the elite media, but the decision has already been made.

When the official position is to treat the pig as if she were a beautiful woman, Charlie Black will be there to pick up the contract for the skillful application of lipstick.

[Nell]

And John McCain will be there to back whatever bloodthirsty policy is required to keep the clients of Charlie Black's firm in power. (Unless, as occasionally happens, enough popular resistance and world attention to the dictatorship develops that our strategic interests are better served by ditching the suddenly disreputable character and taking our chances on a new "partner".)

[Nell]

This is a magisterial post by hilzoy, and I'm therefore a little reluctant to throw cold water on one of its purposes by emphasizing the fact that both parties have sleazy permanent power players who do this kind of lobbying. But it's just the way things are: A close look at the client lists of Tony Coelho, or Walter Mondale, or Clark Clifford, is not advisable before sitting down to the breakfast sausage.

However, I believe that the forthcoming part two, detailing the personal treatment Black gave to the Savimbi account, will highlight one of the actual differences between the parties.

For the most part, Democrats of the last forty years have been "containment" specialists: keep on supporting the crappy dicators we've been supporting, and keep pressing other, more democratic or less friendly governments to do things our way, but not go all out to replace independent or even hostile governments with pliant dictatorships.

Reagan and the rightists who surged into power with him in 1980 were different: they supported "rollback" -- meaning, the overthrow of unfriendly or insufficiently friendly governments by client armies, in the name of anti-communism. It's an old tradition, and it's happened under Democratic presidents as well, but the Republicans are true believers with the big plays: Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973...

[Gary Farber]

"But it's just the way things are: A close look at the client lists of Tony Coelho, or Walter Mondale, or Clark Clifford, is not advisable before sitting down to the breakfast sausage."

Clifford has been dead since 1998, so I doubt he's holding onto many clients.

I'd be quite interested in a pointer as regards Mondale, and Coelho, and any sorts of equivalent clients, though, Nell, if you could be so kind as to offer them, having put that on the table. What specific clients are you referring to? Thanks.

(Mondale has been with Dorsey & Whitney, the law firm; here's a list of clients. Do they have a more secret list, or what?)

"For the most part, Democrats of the last forty years have been 'containment' specialists: keep on supporting the crappy dicators we've been supporting, and keep pressing other, more democratic or less friendly governments to do things our way, but not go all out to replace independent or even hostile governments with pliant dictatorships."

I've never seen "containment" used this way before. "Containment" was the concept George F. Kennan came up with as a policy towards the Soviet Union. Certainly the U.S. supported dictators as you say, but I've never before heard that referred to as part of "containment."

And I've read a heck of a lot on containment. Like, hundreds of books. Ditto plenty on our policies as regards every country in the world, and the many thuggish and worse regimes we've supported. Never heard that referred to as "containment." Is this usage common somewhere, and if so, may I ask where?

"hey supported "rollback" -- meaning, the overthrow of unfriendly or insufficiently friendly governments by client armies, in the name of anti-communism."

"Rollback" was always the proposal to specifically "liberate" a country in the Soviet bloc. It's never been used to refer to regimes that weren't outright part of the Soviet bloc.

And it's never happened, save for Afghanistan. Most specifically Iran and Guatamala and Chile were never ever part of Eastern Europe, nor China. Honest. This just isn't what those words mean, Nell. I'm not disagreeing with your points at all, but they're not about either "containment" or "rollback" which have quite specific meanings as regards only the Soviet bloc, and specifically Eastern Europe/China.

[liberal japonicus]

Actually, Walter Mondale spoke to my students when they were in the Minnesota last summer and after the meeting, I had a chance to talk to him a bit, and he mentioned that he was particularly working with the firm's Japanese clients, as well as American companies looking to do business in Japan. Dorsey and Whitney is represented Wal-mart when they tried to enter the Japanese market, though they haven't had much success. I don't like Wal-mart that much, but it's a stretch to put them with Marcos and Savimbi.

[felix culpa]

Awfulawfulawful.

[Nell]

Your literalism is causing the problem here, Gary. I know the traditional uses of the terms, which is why I use them in quotes here. It's in the nature of a leetle joke about the dueling foreign-lobby forces.

The Reagan crowd did themselves use the term 'rollback' with reference to Angola and Nicaragua. From their point of view, both were in the Soviet orbit already -- and the later Cuban military and logistical support to each was just confirmation. You're going to want a cite, and I've spent too many hours on the intertubes this morning already. My memory is that the Reaganites used the term in speeches before the (Moonie-supported) World Anti-Communist League. Not exactly the Council on Foreign Relations, where you'd horrify the traditionalists.

Okay, Clark Clifford when he was alive was our Charlie Black. I'm pretty sure the index of Chomsky's Washington Connection would turn up a cite or two. Counting on your book boxes to still be packed from the move...

Mondale? Maybe I'm just remembering some vile corporate thing Mondale repped, and it's not a country wanting to erase some human rights atrocity.

Wasn't it Coelho who's got the "What Armenian genocide?" brief for Turkey? Oh, wait, no, I'm thinking of Gephardt and Solzrz. Yes, found a cite. Though their $1.2 million and $165K respectively are just chump change compared with lead Turkey lobbyist Livingston, a Republican, earning another who knows how much on top of the $12 mil Turkey's already paid to his firm:

After Mr. Livingston resigned from the House in 1999 amid disclosures about an extramarital affair, Turkey retained the Livingston Group, his new bipartisan firm. It has built a large foreign practice, representing among others the governments of Azerbaijan, the Congo Republic and the Cayman Islands. More than a quarter of the firm’s income, which has totaled more than $71 million, has come from foreign clients, records show.

Uh, so maybe Dems are practically squeaky clean on the vile dictators/human rights violators front. Except for Gephardt. Who, despite years of taking the Armenian position in the House, now has ... national security concerns. One point two million of them, I'd guess. Solarz may do some more of this kind of thing (he was on, maybe chaired, the Foreign Relations committee before he retired), but this project was likely at the urging of Israeli friends.

We might see some changes if the elections bring bigger Democratic majorities in both chambers; at some point being represented by yesterday's Republicans just might not be good enough for the valued vile dictator clientele.

[Nell]

This Asia Times article on India's move from one bigfoot firm to another during the first Bush term is illustrative of my point that the game is played by both parties -- but no question, Republicans are way ahead on vileness points so far.

[southpaw]

Great post.

Just one thing: Please don't call Burma by the name the brutal junta fashioned for it. James Fallows explains.

[hilzoy]

southpaw: I should probably have capitalized the G in "government of Myanmar", but I was calling the people who hired Goodyear and Davenport by the name they give themselves. Elsewhere, I've used Burma. Fwiw.

Also, I didn't mean to make any claim about Republican lobbyists vs. Democratic ones. I believe Black's lobbying firm is owned by Mark Penn's. I'm just making an argument about a specific individual whom McCain has taken on as his chief political advisor.

[Nell]

hilzoy: [no claim about] Republican lobbyists vs. Democratic ones. I believe Black's lobbying firm is owned by Mark Penn's.

Yes, wheels within wheels. The biggest firms are "bipartisan" enough to be ready for all contingencies -- with the same connected cats appearing over and over.

Some elected officials you could see early on in their careers would be still at the table in "retirement" (Breaux and Lott, together at last). Some seem to have grown out of the very marble of the buildings, never to have been anywhere else except for hunting trips and brief ambassadorships or charge d'affaires stints (Vernon Jordan and Robert Strauss; Brent Scowcroft, Christine Vick, Frank Carlucci).

Solarz, by the way, has a much bigger role with Turkey than just last summer's dust-up stifling the Armenian genocide resolution.

[Gary Farber]

Claim: "...the fact that both parties have sleazy permanent power players who do this kind of lobbying. But it's just the way things are: A close look at the client lists of Tony Coelho, or Walter Mondale, or Clark Clifford, is not advisable before sitting down to the breakfast sausage."

Revision: "Uh, so maybe Dems are practically squeaky clean on the vile dictators/human rights violators front."

Thanks for the clarification. Mondale, still being alive, now no longer has grounds to sue you for making false and libelous statements about him. Apparently Coehlo, too. Ditto that every Democrat who was offended at the false claim can withdraw their offense.

"Just one thing: Please don't call Burma by the name the brutal junta fashioned for it. James Fallows explains."

We just went round on this only what, a a week ago today? Have you considered that some of us might know more than what you read in a blog post by James Fallows (not to mention that we might have been reading Fallows' blog since he started, and know perfectly well that he's no expert on the topic?)?

Because that might be the case.

[dr ngo]

Hilzoy: For purposes of this thread, yours is a fine summary on Marcos (and the link to Alfred McCoy, for whose work I have great respect, is particularly apt). I could add more details, but to what end?

In the ranks of comparative odiousness (odiousity?) I suspect Marcos may not rank at the very very top. E.g., he was not personally (physically) brutal, like some of the others, and most of the violence he perpetrated seems at least to have had some political point, rather than being totally random and anarchic. But this is hardly to exonerate him.

What gets to me, personally, is that the Philippines was, before he came along, so much better off than most of these other places. It *had* a functioning democracy, for twenty years already. It had a military that respected civilian authority. It had an independent judiciary. It had a pretty decent educational system for a "Third World" society. It had an extremely free press. In economic terms, it was poor, but comparable to its cohort in Asia - twice as rich (per capita) as Thailand then, and had only been passed by Taiwan and South Korea a few years before.

And Marcos, besides torturing people and stealing the country blind, threw almost all of this away.

[Gary Farber]

[...] What gets to me, personally, is that the Philippines was, before he came along, so much better off than most of these other places. It *had* a functioning democracy, for twenty years already. It had a military that respected civilian authority. It had an independent judiciary. It had a pretty decent educational system for a "Third World" society. It had an extremely free press. In economic terms, it was poor, but comparable to its cohort in Asia - twice as rich (per capita) as Thailand then, and had only been passed by Taiwan and South Korea a few years before.

And Marcos, besides torturing people and stealing the country blind, threw almost all of this away.

As is almost always the case with the esteemed Dr. Ngo, I second the opinion.

And I add that this needs to be seen in the context of the U.S. moral and historical responsibility for the Philippines via our mission to civilize them through conquest.

[...] In the official war years, there were 4,196 American soldiers dead, 1,020 of which were from actual combat; the remainder died of disease, and 2,930 were wounded.[2] There were also 2,000 casualties that the Philippine Constabulary suffered during the war, over one thousand of which were fatalities. Philippine military deaths are estimated at 20,000 with 16,000 actually counted, while civilian deaths numbered between 250,000 and 1,000,000 Filipinos. These numbers take into account those killed by war, malnutrition, and a cholera epidemic that raged during the war.[63] The Philippine-American War Centennial Initiative gives an estimate of 510,000 civilian deaths, and 20,000 military deaths, excluding 100,000 deaths from the Moro Rebellion.

But, you know, it was a good war:

In 1908, Manuel Arellano Remondo, in a book entitled "General Geography of the Philippine Islands", wrote: “The population decreased due to the wars, in the five-year period from 1895 to 1900, since, at the start of the first insurrection, the population was estimated at 9,000,000, and at present (1908), the inhabitants of the Archipelago do not exceed 8,000,000 in number.”[64]

U.S. attacks into the countryside often included scorched earth campaigns where entire villages were burned and destroyed, torture (water cure) and the concentration of civilians into “protected zones” (concentration camps). Many of the civilian casualties resulted from disease and famine.

Despite all that civilizing help from the U.S., the Philippines were doing reasonably well by the time of the Commonwealth, let alone the Third Republic.

Until the later Marcos era, his second term, the New Society, and martial law.

[Gary Farber]

Please to release my comment.

Thanks.