Cheerleader of the Week [Greg Pollowitz]
Newsweek's Jonathan Alter was on with Olbermann last night discussing the situation in Georgia. Over the past few days, Olbermann has been doing his best to make Senator McCain's foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, an issue because of his lobbying for Georgia. Alter joined in and really stepped over the line, however, when he ended up challenging Scheunemann's loyalty to the United States in giving McCain advice on the crisis:
OLBERMANN: But, legally or morally, is there any culpability here with McCain or now, in this construction more directly with his adviser Mr. Scheunemann?
ALTER: Well, culpability I would shy away from. I mean, the Russians did a bad thing.
OLBERMANN: Yes.
ALTER: And they really should not have done this and I‘m not into the idea of sort of blame shifting for their bad behavior, but I do think it is really unseemly that Randy Scheunemann, you know, had this lobbying contract—and it‘s always the second raters, by the way, who are foreign agents or lobbying for foreign governments. The top foreign policy people do it in a more subtle way. Maybe they‘re consultants but they‘re not lobbyists.
So, you know, this really stinks, this whole deal of him, because you don‘t know who he‘s representing. Is he representing the interest of Georgia or the interest of the United States? And you never want to get into a situation like that and it‘s rather—I hate to say it—inexperienced maybe on John McCain‘s part to be putting up with this kind of thing and, also, there‘s the question of whether, in his rhetoric towards Putin, he‘s just been too inflammatory for American interest.
Does the left really want to play this? An insinuation that Randy Scheunemann is a traitor?
An apology is in order — immediately.
08/14 12:24 PM
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