The Strange Case Of Chas Freeman

You'd think Poppy Bush's choice as Saudi Ambassador would be acceptable to all sides as a bipartisan foreign policy expert and as Obama's nomination as National Intelligence Council chair. You would however be screamingly incorrect.

The GOP is attacking Freeman on his "lack of experience" but the real reason is that the neocons believe Freeman is too close to the Saudis in particular, and not close enough to Israel, not to mention the larger goal of derailing Hillary Clinton as SecState. The Israel lobby in the US has targeted Chas Freeman for destruction as a result and are bringing enormous pressure to bear from the right.

But the stroke that may end Chas Freeman's career is coming from, of all places, the Left.

One new development, revealed here for the first time, which is likely to further damage Freeman's already battered standing is that the former ambassador advocated creating a national identity system in the US as a part of the war on terror. During a 9/11 Commission interview, Freeman remarked that of three major changes the US government should make to effectively combat terror, one was that "the United States should implement a national identity system, so we better know who is who."

This development could raise fresh objections to Freeman from both Republicans advocating leaner and less involved approaches to government and Democrats pushing for more robust civil liberty protections. Additionally, revelation that Freeman advocated putting a national identity system in place might also raise questions from the few remaining left-of-center commentators and outlets which support Freeman's appointment.

Now, that's a hit job if I've ever seen one, and for the HuffPo to go along says to me that the Israel lobby has plenty of neocon friends on the Left, too.

And it seems nobody in Washington is willing to come to Freeman's defense, either. The rancor against Freeman shouldn't be surprising, as far as the Israel lobby is concerned, he doesn't past the loyalty test and might actually tell Obama things about Tel Aviv that could almost be considered the truth.

But with the coming Netanyahu administration in Israel, Freeman will almost immediately become a point of contention. They don't like him, and the irony is apparently lost on everyone that an American foreign policy adviser is being accused of being under undue foreign influence by another foreign country who clearly means to bring undue foreign influence to bear on his appointment.