Charlie Black's History of Dirty Politics

Charlie Black, senior advisor to John McCain, has caused an uproar in political circles by claiming that another terrorist attack on US soil "would be a big advantage" for McCain.

For those who've followed Black's career, this latest "gaffe" should hardly be surprising. Black has a long history of rough-and-tumble politics, on behalf of some of the most controversial figures in this country and abroad.

Black was a protege of the late GOP operative Lee Atwater, who coldly implemented the Republican Party's racially divisive "Southern strategy." Both Atwater and Black were longtime advisors to former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms. In 1990, with Black as his senior advisor (the same position he now holds for McCain), Helms ran this ad against his African-American opponent, Harvey Gantt.

Here's the script: "You needed that job and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority, because of a racial quota. Is that really fair? Harvey Gantt says it is. Gantt supports Ted Kennedy's racial quota law, that makes the color of your skin more important than your qualifications. You'll vote on this issue next Tuesday. For racial quotas: Harvey Gantt. Against racial quotas: Jesse Helms."

Another Helms ad accused Gantt of running a "secret campaign" aimed at black radio. Here's how that one went, according to the New York Times: "Why doesn't Harvey Gantt run his ad on all radio stations, so everyone can hear it, instead of just on black radio stations? Doesn't Harvey Gantt want everyone to vote?"

Time magazine's Michael Kinsley wrote that the purpose of the ads were to "promote simple racism against Gantt." Emory political scientist Merle Black said Helms "has demonstrated a consistent willingness to use race as a campaign theme."

Yet when asked if there was anything inappropriate about the ads, Black responded: "Of course not."

When he wasn't working on GOP political campaigns, Black was a leader of what the Center for Public Integrity termed "The Torturers Lobby." [pdf] As a lobbyist for Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly, Black represented the likes of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and Jonas Savimbi of Angola.

In 1992, as Ken Silverstein of Harper's recently noted, Spy magazine ran a profile of Black's lobbying firm. "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," Silverstein writes. "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."

More recently, as the chairman of BKSH & Associates (a subsidiary of Mark Penn's firm Burson-Marsteller), Black flacked for disgraced Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi and the Lincoln Group, the shadowy PR firm that covertly placed US military propaganda in Iraqi news outlets. According to The New Yorker, Black hoped to set up "the first lobbying shop in Baghdad." As he told the magazine in 2004, "Is there too much cronyism? I just wish I could find the cronies."

In the end, Black didn't do so badly. Since 1999, BKSH earned over $4 million in lobbyist fees on behalf of 11 Iraq war defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin and United Technologies. As recently as February, Black was conducted his lobbying work from aboard McCain's campaign bus, the "Straight Talk Express."

Black has since stepped down from BKSH to devote his services full-time to McCain. When asked in May if lobbying work by top staffers would hurt McCain, Black responded, "Hell no. This is complete inside-the-beltway nonsense."

But like it or not, Black has returned to a familiar place: the aging political hitman, once again at the center of controversy.

Comments (10)

1. Figure McCain said "Hell, if it worked for Jesse, it might work for me!"?

   Posted by Mask at 06/25/2008 @ 10:13am

2. So McCain is complaining about Obama not jumping on the government funding band wagon, yet he has a lobbyist as one of his top advisors? Not just any lobbyist either, apparently one of the sleaziest.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 06/25/2008 @ 11:03am

3. Actually another terrorist attack on US soil would throw out the last and only remaining semi-success the hsuB/cHeney admin claims after allowing the US to get hit on 9/11. That the hsuB/cHeney admin are so dysfunctional, incompetent and corrupt to allow it again, surely would deal McCave and the new con MIC MAD GOP such a death-blow that only the lowest of their vampiric clan would continue slithering about. This would be obvious to all. Well to those of any intelligence and with a greater attention span to that of a gnat.

   Posted by hsuBfools at 06/25/2008 @ 11:56am

4. You don't have to be brilliant to accomplish what people like Rove and Black do. Just prey upon the fears, prejudices and stupidity of people. Your average bully with the IQ of a wallnut usually has this figured out by the 3rd or 4th grade.

   Other than that, being a perpetual lying jerk is the only other qualification for the job.

   Posted by Wolfgang1 at 06/25/2008 @ 12:38pm

5. Heard a new poll on the MSM that stated that only 27% will admit to being a repub.

   http://tinyurl.com/3cgtzy

   Yet 30% will admit to being a racist...

   http://www.newser.com/story/30623.html

   UHhhhmmmm

   Posted by hsuBfools at 06/25/2008 @ 12:52pm

6. Hey Libz, I see you are supporting those that feed you propaganda from dictators and your good friend Achmed -the convicted felon and known liar- Chalabi. It looks to me like you and McCains associates want to keep dictators in power around the world. so much for freedom in those places, eh Libz?

   Yep, one is known by the company one keeps.

   Lets see if the "liberal media" makes a squeek about this "man" Charlie Black, appeaser.

   Posted by crabwalk at 06/25/2008 @ 1:18pm

7. Great read Ari.

   What a sad testimonial to what this country has become.

   McCain = Chuckie Black.....Yep!

   Posted by OneVote at 06/25/2008 @ 1:22pm

8. Sad that new con repubs place such high value on criminality as long as they win and get away with it. For those so hypocritically on the side of law and order; justice to them is if you just let the criminals in the WH go 'Scott' free per the pres is stepping down voluntarily in a few months.

   Yet experience indicates most crime fighters work extraordinarily harder as the statute of limitation approaches.

   OH wait-- THERE IS NO STATUTE OF LIMITATION FOR EXECUTIVE CRIMES!

   Posted by hsuBfools at 06/25/2008 @ 1:45pm

9. Posted by hsuBfools at 06/25/2008 @ 1:45pm |

   HSUB, you really think Obama and the Dems will push for criminal prosecution of Bush/Cheney after they leave office?

   Really?

   Posted by Mask at 06/25/2008 @ 5:02pm

10. Posted by hsuBfools at 06/25/2008 @ 11:56am | ignore this person | warn this person

    This would seem a completely valid point Hsub except...

    ...don't forget how easily they went from 9-11 happened on Bush's watch...but it was Clinton's fault...then Bush attacked Iraq (even though all of the 9-11 planners and paticipants were Saudis)...and a few weeks later declared a rousing 'Mission Accomplished' (with the military they had previously claimed was decimated to total ineffectiveness by Clinton)...and the proof of the brilliance of that strategy is that it (somehow...magically) prevented another 9-11.

    I mean, it's not like anything approaching logic has ever governed the 'con' thinking here, you know?

    Is there any doubt whatsoever that, should the unthinkable happen and we suffer another terrorist attack of some kind, that they would slide effortlessly into a full-throated 'McSame is our last, best hope for protection' and 'winning the war on terror'?

    Posted by Lillian at 06/25/2008 @ 9:40pm