HuffPo: McCain Is Taking Foreign Policy Advice From This Guy?

Lionel Beehner: McCain Is Taking Foreign Policy Advice From This Guy?

Nothing pleases me more than listening to the sage wisdom of McCain's chief ideologue and foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann. If you listen to him talk enough, your head may develop sore spots from scratching. I don't mind that he never passes up a chance to take a pot shot at Obama -- that's what campaign strategists are paid to do. What puzzles me is his long and distinguished résumé of being wrong on pretty much every major foreign policy issue of our time.

But first thing's first: What's up with his bizarre preoccupation with time, and the order in which Obama events occur? One imagines he is the kind of person who is puzzled that lightning precedes thunder, not the other way around.

Let me explain what I mean: Scheunemann excoriated the Democratic candidate for giving a speech about Iraq before his trip to the country, not afterward. Similarly, as he told Der Spiegel prior to Obama's visit to Europe, Scheunemann is upset Obama "is giving his first major speech in Berlin before having met with French or British leaders. I don't know if it is even delivered before his meeting with German leaders. Clearly he is not taking into account what they say."

Clearly. Obama apparently is the kind of guy who tries to work the VCR before reading the manual, who refuses to ask for directions, and who forms impressions of people and places without ever stepping foot in their shoes or homes. That is basically what Scheunemann is saying.

And he should know something about sound judgment. This is, after all, the same guy who lorded over the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, the neocon effort that hatched the plan to take out Saddam -- aftermath or troop numbers or warnings from nearly every foreign leader be damned. More disturbingly, he is the worst kind of Washington insider, a guy who works on the hill, kisses every ass he can to further his career, and then cashes in on his Capitol Hill connections by -- what else? -- working as a lobbyist for dubious foreign governments. If North Korea were to hand him a briefcase of cash, he probably would buy a condo in Pyongyang.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lionel-beehner/mccain-is-taking-foreign_b_115983.html