I don’t know if I can expect anybody else to point this out. But check out the participants list of the McCain campaign’s conference call this morning calling Barack Obama “naive” and “delusional”. Look at the names of the two worthies making these accusations.
Randy Scheuneman and Jim Woolsey. Let’s track back for a moment here. Both were top supporters of disgraced charlatan and accused Iranian spy Ahmad Chalabi in the lead up to the Iraq War. Woolsey, in addition to being one of his top DC confidants, was actually Chalabi’s lobbyist. Needless to say both were also big advocates of the most lurid and far-fetched claims about Saddam’s phantom WMDs. And not just the stocks of mustard gas and botulinum toxin that a lot of people in DC believed Saddam had. But truly loopy stuff.
I remember numerous panels I attended at AEI from the early part of this decade when Woolsey, to eager gasps and awws, would describe some ingenious concoction of this or that chemical agent that would not only kill you but turn you inside out and and reduce you to your constituent elements before doing so. Yes, that’s a bit of lyrical hyperbole. But I assure you, not much more far-fetched than a lot of the stuff Woolsey was peddling back in those days — which, to be generous and give him the benefit of the doubt — let’s assume Chalabi and his other fellow hucksters fooled Woolsey into believing.
Delusional and naive? I’d say both of these guys are really overdrawn in that department. These two simply have too much egg on their faces to be hurling those claims at anyone else.
But let’s have a little fun with this. Google is a wonderful thing. What quotes can you find from Scheuneman and Woolsey from 2001, 2002 and 2003. There are a lot. Send in what you find. We’ll print some.
Late Update: Okay, it’s not exactly what I was looking for since it doesn’t have Woolsey talking about some Saddam-invented chemical compound that makes turn into molten rock. But TPM Reader RR sends in these choice quotes from this November 23rd, 2003 article in the Washington Post. McCain on Chalabi: “He’s a patriot who has the best interests of his country at heart.” And Woolsey on Chalabi: “He’s a class act.”
