Did Chuck Schumer kill the Freeman appointment?

Posted By Laura Rozen Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - 2:05 AM Share

Did Sen. Charles Schumer, as the New York Democrat seems to imply here, kill the appointment of Chas Freeman to chair the NIC?

Not so, said Freeman by e-mail: "Schumer deserves no credit. This was between me and [DNI Adm. Dennis] Blair and for the reasons stated."

"Schumer didn't need anyone to tell him" Freeman was problematic, said one former official at a pro-Israel group. "He's been in the business a long time, and he’s got good staff. But that doesn't mean they didn't call AIPAC for research material." (An Aipac official told the New York Times that the group "had not taken a formal position on Mr. Freeman’s selection and had not lobbied Congress members to oppose it.")
 
"Freeman’s resignation leaves big unanswered questions," the former lobby group official continued. "Was the White House blindsided with this appointment because Blair never cleared the choice of his old friend or give Team Obama a chance to vet him? The result is Blair handed a big gift to the administration’s enemies."
 
The controversy surrounding the appointment shows that the Obama administration "forgot number one what vetting is supposed to be about," a former Hill foreign policy staffer said. It's not, as has recently been employed on multiple would-be nominees, he continued, "about having IRS lawyers" searching through decades of receipts. "It's a classic vet," about whether someone has perceived or actual baggage or conflicts of interest.
 
"For the record: I have never sought to be paid or accepted payment from any foreign government, including Saudi Arabia or China, for any service, nor have I ever spoken on behalf of a foreign government, its interests, or its policies," Freeman said in a statement Tuesday. "I have never lobbied any branch of our government for any cause, foreign or domestic. I am my own man, no one else’s, and with my return to private life, I will once again – to my pleasure – serve no master other than myself."
 
Freeman's withdrawal "is terrible news for anyone who had hoped that the Obama Administration stands tough-minded, rational, probing, and, yes, brutally honest about the life threatening challenges out there," wrote veteran Washington observer Chris Nelson in his eponymous Nelson Report. "If it turns out the White House pulled the plug on Freeman because of political pressure...shame on it.  If it turns out Blair didn't have the guts to stick with his guy...shame on him. If it turns out Freeman just couldn't stomach any more lies from Capitol Hill and the established media, not to mention the blogs, shame on us all."

Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images News

EXPLORE:CHAS FREEMAN, ISRAEL/PALESTINE
 

MDREW

6:46 AM ET

March 11, 2009

"'Hillary [Clinton] is unleashed'"???

How in the hell are we supposed to decipher what that's supposed to mean?

 

MLS

11:54 AM ET

March 11, 2009

I was going to comment that

I was going to comment that the quote about Hillary, Lieberman and Feltman may have meant something to the cognoscenti, but it left me baffled. But I see it has disappeared so perhaps it wasn't just me.

 

ZATHRAS

7:37 PM ET

March 11, 2009

Spun

Rozen's lobbyist source is trying to plant a line that DNI Blair served the President badly by springing an improperly vetted appointment on an unsuspecting White House. Let's just say this strains credulity, since Amb. Freeman is a well-known figure in foreign policy/intelligence circles and preparation of NIEs was a controversial subject during the last administration.

It's reasonable to assume that the same people who attacked Freeman's appointment will look for opportunities to take a shot at the guy who wanted him in the first place, Blair. Quotes from that quarter should be considered with that in mind.

 

ELDER OF ZON

11:19 AM ET

March 12, 2009

If It Walks Like a Duck...

Chris Nelson in his eponymous Nelson Report. "If it turns out the White House pulled the plug on Freeman because of political pressure...shame on it. If it turns out Blair didn't have the guts to stick with his guy...shame on him. If it turns out Freeman just couldn't stomach any more lies from Capitol Hill and the established media, not to mention the blogs, shame on us all."

Nelson omits the other possibility: If it turns out Freeman is really the nutcase he appears to be, the people of the United States just dodged a bullet.

 

BKAPLOVITZ

1:45 AM ET

March 25, 2009

Chas Freeman "petitions" the U.S. to Withdraw from Afghanistan

From Commentary Magazine's "Contentions" Weblog:
March 23, 2009

Thank Goodness for the Obama Administration’s Thorough Vetting Process

By Ted R. Bromund

I had dinner last week with a former student who worked for Obama’s campaign and now, like millions of others, is in town to try to land an administration job. His complaint was that the administration’s vetting procedures were so thorough that they were slowing him up, a complaint that made me choke on the excellent Pomerol we’d ordered.

I thought of his complaint again today, when a friend pointed out an interesting item in the February 26, 2009, New York Review of Books: a petition calling on the U.S. to withdraw immediately and totally from Afghanistan. One signatory, predictably, was Norman Finkelstein. Another, equally predictably, was Chas Freeman. That petition was published weeks before Freeman’s name was put forward as the arbiter of U.S. intelligence assessments. Now, naturally, it would never for a moment compromise Freeman’s objectivity that his self-declared political opinions are wildly at odds with those of the administration he sought to join. Nor is there anything even slightly unseemly about a candidate for such a position publicly stating preferences that would immediately put him at partisan odds with the President. Nor, of course, need we wonder at the fact that Freeman found himself politically at home with a conspiracy theorist like Finkelstein.

But I do have to wonder about those vetting procedures. Freeman wanted the job, but it seems unlikely that he informed the administration of his publicly-expressed views. And amazingly, no one in the administration noticed them. The press doesn’t get a pass here: it’s astonishing that this publicly-available petition wasn’t immediately brought up as a reason why he was profoundly unsuited for the intelligence job.

Of course, all that may be too generous. Perhaps it’s not true that no one in the administration noticed his views about their policy. Perhaps, instead, they noticed and didn’t care. In that case, we have to ask not about the competence of their vetting process, but about the sincerity of their commitment to the war in Afghanistan.

Copyright © 1997-2009 Commentary Magazine
All Rights Reserved

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/bromund/59741

 

John Hudson reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable.

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