Worse yet, one of his regional campaign directors had to resign for the same thing:

marcambinder.theatlantic.com/.../a_second_mccain_aide_resigns.php

I wonder if Rick Davis has any buddies lobbying for Sudan that he can bring in.

Is it time to "vet" McCain yet? Lobbyists for Burmese junta? Are you kidding?  What a "maverick" John McCain has become.  Let's see what nicknames we can now come up with for the ole straight talk express. The "K street Express" springs to mind or the "lobbyist express."

Amazing timing.  All that's needed now is a someone who works for McCain and has been speculating in subdivision sales in recently emptied villages in Darfur.

Wow! You guys are really behind the curve. TPM reported the Doug Goodyear?Burma Connection story on Friday (courtesy of Newsweek). The McCain campaign moved with alacrity to address its P.R. problem. I wonder if FOX, MSNBC, and CNN had enough time to report the matter ad nauseam ?  Guess not.

I read   The May 9 WaPo published another article regarding a  less-than-above-board land deal that the Mac influenced. Yet, no incessant coverage on the networks.  Figures.

Re: tec619, I wonder just how badly the board members of MSM don't want an Obama administration in Jan.? Depressing thought.

Daveis, you've got it totally right.  McCain has been sliding along thinking everything was rosy.  Obama doesn't want to conduct a Clinton-like campaign, but there's stuff that is far worse than Rev. Wright in McCain's house.

daveis: How is express. . .campaign contributions?

tomeg: Don't start that MSM-conspiracy-against-Obama business. You don't want my boy sleepy accusing you of being some kind of mindless Obama groupie. :-)

What do you expect? K Streeters will lobby for anyone or any regime if they pony up the benjamins. There is too much inertia and laziness among the prestige press corps. The uber narrative that got laid down eight years ago and had some validity then and for the better part of the next four years was that McCain was a maverick. But that was then. Back then, McCain took on lobbyists. Now, lobbyists run his campaign; the loathsome Rick Davis is the McCain campaigns' CEO.

I think we are seeing just the "tip of the iceberg" on McCain connections.

"You really can't trust people named Doug, apparently"

McCain's main economic advisor is Doug Holtz-Eakin, and his son is named Doug.   Who knows what sort of scandals we'll see there?  Clearly, McCain is in the pocket of the Big Doug lobby.

People actually lobby for Burma? This so-called junta is one of the world's leading drug cartels, which also specialize in the slave trade. This is going to get interesting.

When it comes to national leadership, Burma really does fit in the same league as Sudan, North Korea and not much else. Lobbying for Syria or Turkmenistan would have been a step up. And it's all part of this ridiculous "everyone has a constitutional right to a high paid lobbyist" form of self-justification that Chait and others have rightfully skewered.

To hell with flag pins; isn't taking money from a foreign government to influence our government pretty much the dictionary definition of "unpatriotic"? How is being a paid lobbyist for Burma different from, say, accepting a $20 payment from a stranger to burn the flag? And what does it say of McCain -- a veteran of the most arduous service to his country no less -- that he would associate with people who make their living as professional anti-American unpatriots? Does McCain hate America too, or does he just not care one way or the other?

Willpastor: Nice conceit. Lobbying for Syria or Turkmenistan would be a step up from flacking for the gangstas of Myanmar.

Rhubarbs: Surely not all lobbying for foreign governments is unpatriotic. It would become so if such activity contravened US security concerns , etc. Myanmar's thuggish junta is a danger to no one except its own people. Lobbying for them violates the canons of human decency. And it is not like we don't throw our power and influence around, which, as the world's only hyperpower we have done quite a bit of.

libref, I'm as big a Canadaphile as you'll find among native-born Americans. I think most of the rest of the English-speaking world should enjoy special favor in Washington, too. But I would never accept payment to advocate on behalf of any foreign country, no matter how much I wished to see its interests considered by my own government. Do it for free, and I won't question your loyalty. Do it on a foreigner's dime, and I will assume against your love of country.

Any foreign country that wishes to pay a professional to advocate on its behalf in Washington can simply send a diplomat to do so. That's, you know, what diplomats are for.

But the point isn't what I think -- and I caricature my own opinions a bit here for effect -- but how the matter can be framed for voters. When the GOP attacks Obama's patriotism over pins and preachers and 57 states, Democrats need to hit back hard with the easy-to-frame question of why McCain surrounds himself with people who have literally sold out to foreign tyrants like common traitors. It just "smells" wrong to most Americans to have political insiders taking money from foreigners to lobby in Washington; explaining the nuanced free-market principles that might justify such behavior is much more difficult. Which is to say, as campaign attacks go, this is easily defended high ground. Make the GOP try to win an argument in favor of taking cash from foreign tyrants to lobby in Washington.

Josh notes that, before opting for just-resigned lobbyist Doug Goodyear, John McCain initially wanted

So it would seem that Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury story line with Duke flacking for the fictional Berzerkistan was fairly tame by comparison.  Sheesh.  What exactly are the paranoid, thuggish freaks who run Myanmar (or Burma or whatever) lobbying *for* over here?  

The Plank: Your post was truncated. Can you redo? Cspencef: Doonesbury has been hilarious on that theme. Life imitating - or even exceeding - art.