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Matt Lewis: Obama Appoints Lobbyist as Senior Policy Adviser
Townhall.com Blog's TownHall Blog — ... . This, of course, is only interesting because of the appearance of hypocrisy. Obama has touted the fact that he will not accept money from lobbyists -- because he does not want to be influenced by them as president. Clearly, though, he has not banned lobbyists from providing advice and endorsements... Update : A reader points out that Daniel Kurtzer’s (another Obama foreign policy adviser) ...

Embracing the Axis of Evil: An Obama Adviser Goes To Syria and Comes Home Unsure if He Was Used
RedState: Conservative News and Community — ... Daniel Kurtzer, one of Obama's many, many foreign policy advisers, went to Syria and met with Syria's Foreign Minister, Walid al-Moallem. ...

The Road to Damascus, brought to Obama adviser by: Big Oil!
Hot Air » Top Picks — ... For the second time today, a Barack Obama foreign-policy adviser has shown ties to the oil industry that Democrats insist on demonizing.  Former Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer traveled to Syria as part of the First International Lawyers Conference in Damascus, and while there, advised the Bashar Assad government to get cracking on the peace process with Israel. Kurtzer is one of the 300 foreign-policy advisers to Obama for his presidential campaign and is senior enough to have accompanied Obama on his world tour, and served both Clinton and Bush administrations: The next ...

McCain Campaign Likely To Critize Obama Over Adviser's Visit To Syria
TPM Election Central — ... The McCain campaign is likely going to try to make an issue today over this report in the New York Sun saying that a foreign policy adviser to Obama provided advice to the Syrian government last month, a McCain campaign source tells me. ...

A trip to Syria
Ben Smith's Blog — The McCain campaign today is rolling out Rudy Giuliani to attack Obama for the trip an adviser made to Syria. The adviser, former Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, was on an American Bar Association-sponsored trip, as the Sun reported today. The Obama campaign noted that Kurtzer isn't a paid adviser, but heisn't the kind of marginal figure on whom campaigns try to hang attacks. He's been a key Obama surrogate with Jewish voters, and just this morning, he and Dennis Ross were the signatories on an email to Obama's Jewish outreach list recapping Obama's visit to ...

McCain Ridiculous Syria Attacks
democracyarsenal.org — ... So it looks like the McCain campaign is attacking an Obama adviser, and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Kurtzer, for going to an American Bar Association conference in Damascus and calling on the Syrians to make peace with Israel. I guess to the McCain campaign, anyone that calls for peace through negotiations instead of "peace" through war is asking to be attacked. But this seems like a really dumb thing to do for two reasons. ...

McCain’s new attack on Obama and Syria — and how to turn it around
Political Animal — At first blush, this report in the New York Sun seems to have very little relevance to the presidential campaign. Republican or Democrat, will make a Syrian-Israeli peace agreement a priority only if the two sides, meeting now in Turkey, make substantial progress before the inauguration. That is what a foreign policy adviser to Senator Obama told Syria’s foreign minister last month while on a visit to Damascus. While the trip was not connected to the Obama campaign, Daniel Kurtzer nonetheless provided Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem with some ...

Max Bergmann: McCain Attacks Obama's Support For Israeli Peace Negotiations
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... So it looks like the McCain campaign is attacking an Obama adviser, and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Kurtzer, for going to an American Bar Association conference in Damascus and calling on the Syrians to make peace with Israel. I guess to the McCain campaign, anyone that calls for peace through negotiations instead of "peace" through war is asking to be attacked. But this seems like a really dumb thing to do for two reasons. ...

As American As Baseball and Talking to Our Enemies?
democracyarsenal.org — ... My friend Eli Lake didn't think these things were worth reporting, and no surprise the McCain campaign smear machine didn't dig them up.  But one man of courage, faith and principle ought to be able to recognize another whether they agree or disagree.  When someone with a record like this can be trashed, how on earth are we supposed to have a bipartisan foreign policy establishment, or partisanship that stops at the water's edge?  (I know, I know, it was only a rhetorical question.  But still.) ...

Richard Clarke: "Quick Draw John" McCain Wanted War Before Bush Did
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — ... McCain's message came a bit muddled. His campaign's call -- which took as its focus the a new report that one of Obama's advisers spoke with Syria's foreign minister last month -- started out with a factual error and ended by cutting off a critical-sounding question from a journalist. ...

Giuliani, Obama Advisers On Attack
Real Clear Politics - TIME.com — The McCain campaign picked up on a story in the New York Sun today, which reported that an Obama adviser met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem while on a non-campaign related trip. Daniel Kurtzer, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, was reportedly in Syria for an American Bar Association-sponsored law conference when he spoke with al-Moallem about the Syrian-Israeli peace agreement. Responding to the report, Rudy Giuliani, who was named the keynote speaker at the Republican convention, spoke with reporters on an afternoon conference call and questioned Obama's ...

Warring McCain, Obama Camps
The Caucus — ... quickly went awry, both men ended up on the defensive, and the call was cut short with reporters still waiting to ask questions. The focus of the McCain camp’s attack was Daniel Kurtzer, a former American ambassador to Israel and Egypt. Last month, Mr. Kurtzer traveled to Damascus, the Syrian capital, to participate in a conference on the rule of law sponsored in part by the American Bar Association. While there, he met with the Syrian foreign minister and urged him, according to a report this week in the New York Sun, not to wait until a new American president takes office ...

McCain Campaign Attacks Former U.S. Ambassador To Israel
Wonk Room — ... trying to make an issue of former U.S. ambassador to Israel/current Barack Obama adviser Daniel Kurtzer’s attending a legal conference in Damascus. McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann and Ru9y Giul1an1 both did their best to spin Kurtzer’s presence in Syria in the most sinister way possible, but unfortunately for Team McCain, the only traction the story has gotten thus far has focused on reporter Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency ...

Do You Want More?
Obsidian Wings — ... trying to make an issue of former U.S. ambassador to Israel/current Barack Obama adviser Daniel Kurtzer’s attending a legal conference in Damascus. McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann and Ru9y Giul1an1 both did their best to spin Kurtzer’s presence in Syria in the most sinister way possible, but unfortunately for Team McCain, the only traction the story has gotten thus far has focused on reporter Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency ...

Too Many Chiefs
Weekly Standard Blog — ... Smith also reports that "the climate of uncertainty has led prominent Obama advisors, including former Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer, to return to private life." Kurtzer was close enough to the candidate to be invited along on Obama's trip to Israel during the campaign, but he also met with senior Syrian officials just weeks earlier as part of a trip "underwritten by a number of Syrian corporations and also by Petro-Canada, a Canadian oil concern." Maybe that would have been a problem in his confirmation hearings. ...