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.

Black’s affiliation with Chalabi was much more extensive. It appears that Black was pleased with the work that Chalabi’s organization, the Iraqi National Congress (IRC), was able to accomplish from this quote, “The INC became not only well known, but I think the message got out there strongly.”

The INC which Black is referring to is now known as the leading disinfo team that lobbied heavily in Washington, with the guidance of Black and BKSH, for regime change in Iraq via an American led military invasion. Chaliabi’s hope was to have the IRC, as essentially an American client regime, installed in Iraq after Saddam was ousted.

Having complete knowledge of Black’s affiliations did not stop McCain from sending Black on the talk show circuit in the wake of the campaign’s only major damage control operation, namely the Vicki Iseman scandal.

Since stepping down from his post at BKSH Black as taken on an increasingly vital role as spokesman for the McCain camp as was apparent last week at the Christian Science Monitor sponsored lunch, during which Black fielded questions from the press. A theme of the talking points driven home by Black was the need as well as the capability of McCain to distance himself from President Bush. The irony of Black preaching this message, of course, being that McCain would also be doing himself a favor by distancing himself from Black.

Here are few quick thoughts to ponder as McCain begins to go through a more thorough vetting process:

The DNC (Democratic National Committee) recently launched their first full-fledged offensive strike against McCain, laying out in a television commercial McCain’s own words regarding a 100 year commitment in Iraq, and for all intents and purposes, it is fair to say that it was a direct hit.

After the Democratic race is decided, it will be interesting to see what targets the Democrats choose in what seems to be a very target rich campaign. It will also be interesting to watch just how long McCain sticks with the town hall format which could turn out to be the most prolific supplier of the Democratic arsenal. My feeling is that McCain will keep the format, but access will become increasingly restricted as November draws near.




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