The Burma Connection

[ldzppln]

Convention Chief Resigns Over His Firm's Work for Burma

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 11, 2008; Page A13

The veteran political operative chosen by Sen. John McCain to run the Republican National Convention this summer abruptly resigned yesterday after Newsweek reported that the lobbying and public relations firm he heads once represented the Burmese government.

Doug Goodyear, the chief executive and co-founder of DCI Group, said in a statement that he resigned the post "so as not to become a distraction in this campaign."

DCI, a well-known Republican firm that provides lobbying services mostly for corporate interests, was paid $348,000 in 2002 and 2003 to represent Burma's junta, Newsweek reported on its Web site yesterday.

"It was our only foreign representation, it was for a short tenure, and it was six years ago," Newsweek quoted Goodyear as saying.

News outlets including The Washington Post have previously reported on the firm's links to Burma's military leaders, including that it arranged meetings with White House officials to press the generals' agenda, but the ties gained new relevance in the wake of two recent developments.

The first was the McCain campaign's choice earlier this month of Goodyear as convention coordinator, citing his management skill. The second was the junta's response to Tropical Cyclone Nargis's ravaging of Burma, also called Myanmar, where as many as 100,000 people are dead or missing from the storm.

The Burmese government has drawn international condemnation for blocking international relief organizations from distributing much-needed food and supplies to the more than 1 million residents left homeless by the storm.

Goodyear told Newsweek that the junta's handling of the cyclone crisis has been "reprehensible."

Goodyear, a resident of McCain's home state of Arizona, co-founded DCI Group in 1996 after being active in politics, according to the firm's Web site. He was political director for the Colorado GOP in the 1980s and managed Pete Dawkins's unsuccessful 1988 U.S. Senate campaign in New Jersey.

As national convention coordinator, Goodyear served as a liaison between the McCain campaign and the national party.

Matt Burns, a convention spokesman, said the convention staff will proceed with mapping out details of the event, to run Sept. 1-4 in St. Paul, Minn.

"We're going to have a successful convention in September," Burns said. "We look forward to it, and planning is moving forward, as it has been for more than a year."

Maria Cino, who served as deputy transportation secretary to President Bush, is the president and chief of the convention.

McCain has been attacked by rivals for allowing his campaign to be run by lobbyists and former lobbyists, despite his own rhetoric against special interests. His inner circle of staffers include senior adviser Charles Black, who recently left his lobbying firm to join the campaign full time, and campaign manager Rick Davis, who also had once been a registered lobbyist.

DCI's many clients over the years have included General Motors, Exxon Mobil, Verizon and Morgan Stanley, according to federal disclosure forms. The firm is expert in targeting voters and persuading them to contact their elected officials, a mechanism called grass-roots lobbying. But it has also lobbied lawmakers directly and has registered to lobby for a long list of clients at the federal level.

[P562045]

Do we really need a lot of McCain is evil stories?

I can think of at least two pictures of McCain hugging Bush and I would hope that is all we really need to get this particular point across. There are definite reasons why McCain and Bush need to be connected. It is quite simple actually. Bush is definitely evil and if McCain is even in the same zip code with Bush he must be evil as well. It is going to be a little difficult to get people to think of McCain as a republican no matter what he says. I am just not buying it for a second.

Why is it that the media always mentions the high end of the death toll especially when we have no idea how many people are really dead?

It sort of reminds me when I guess it was Nagin or one of his handlers came out said they need 10,000 body bags after Katrina when the actual number was much closer to than 1,000 than 10,000. Just a tiny bit of difference right?

There is also some other very bad news in this article as well. From the days August 26 to September 4 of this year we are only going to be getting three days off, because of two political conventions, from a total of those ten days. I can't wait.

Sounds like a great time to go on an television news "diet". That means I watch very little if any news on television and if it local news I will watch from the weather on only but the last story might make me mad as well because they may have a cute puppy story or something similar that is really not news at all but they need some kind of "filler" for the last few seconds of the newscast.

[-mmm-]

Originally Posted by P562045

Do we really need a lot of McCain is evil stories?

But as the Obama/Wright thing has shown, we are supposed to judge the candidates on who they associate themselves with.

And Im surprised you havent gone away from the tv news, with so much more on the internet that is more sourced and more detailed (well some sites more than others of course). I still keep tabs on it to see what everyone else is watching, but can only take so much before I hear something so stupid that one is forced to turn to something else (and the so called leader in news, CNN has far far far surpassed Fox News in that aspect).

And it could be worse P, it's not like the conventions are coming to your state, where once a night you already hear at least one story on the local news about something going on in preparation for the convention.

[StockTrader]

Originally Posted by -mmm-

But as the Obama/Wright thing has shown, we are supposed to judge the candidates on who they associate themselves with.

Wow, and Dem's don't do this to McCain ALL the time?

Nick

[-mmm-]

Originally Posted by StockTrader

Wow, and Dem's don't do this to McCain ALL the time?

Nick

All the time? Hmmmm I usually read/hear about him and his 100 years of war and stuff like that.

[tymy]

Originally Posted by -mmm-

All the time? Hmmmm I usually read/hear about him and his 100 years of war and stuff like that.

Better than listening to Obama stumble thru a question he has no idea of how to answer.

[hork]

Originally Posted by tymy

Better than listening to Obama stumble thru a question he has no idea of how to answer.

one would think given the last 7 years, we'd have come to expect that to be the case for whoever occupies the oval office....

[tymy]

Originally Posted by hork

one would think given the last 7 years, we'd have come to expect that to be the case for whoever occupies the oval office....

Let's see what happens in the debates and what the DNC spin will be when Obama gets crushed.