Guilt by association...

Powerline (which can do much better than this) quotes at length one of Sen. McCain's top foreign policy advisers, one former CIA Director James Woolsey, on the supposed wrongheadedness of Sen. Obama's intention to return to a more law enforcement-centric method of combating terrorism. That the conservative blog favours McCain's position over Obama's ought to surprise nobody (the merits of both are certainly debatable, and there are plenty of 'experts' supporting each side) but Woolsey appears to be an extraordinarily disreputable source. He was on television the day after Sept. 11 suggesting Iraqi sponsorship of the attacks, and suggested in 2006 that the United States ought to unilaterally bomb Syria.

It ought to also come as no surprise that the Project for the New American Century member may also be a merchant of death, simultaneously supporting the invasion of Iraq (in fact serving on the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq) while also profiting from its prosecution.

Here is Rightweb on Woolsey and his connections: "Former CIA Director James Woolsey is a principal in the Paladin Capital Group, a venture-capital firm that, like [Richard] Perle's Trireme Partners, is soliciting investment for homeland security firms. Woolsey joined consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton as vice president in July 2002. The company had contracts worth more than $680 million in 2002. Woolsey told the Wall Street Journal that he does no lobbying and that none of the companies he has ties to have been discussed during a Defense Policy Board meeting."

If the guilt-by-association standard is to be applied throughout this election - which I generally don't support - let it be done fairly, to both candidates.