Black is the new Black

Yesterday i mentioned charlie black and BKSH. he's one of my favourites - i'd love to bring him down. i probably shouldn't have mentioned him, because now I won't stop talking about him again (with some prodding from starroute).

Here's one snippet:

""BKSH & Assocs., has been hired by The Lincoln Group, one of three firms selected last month by the U.S. Special Operations Command to wage psychological warfare on behalf of the Pentagon in Iraq and other hot spots," O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. "BKSH has experience on the Iraqi front earned from work for Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress. ""

Not only did Lincoln sub out to BKSH, Lincoln also used BKSH as their lobbying firm. sweet.

Our man, Francis Brooke, is also BKSH (and rendon) alumni.

or there's this:

"and just to add a delicious twist or six - other clients include the ukranian, nigerian , haitian
governments, yukos oil and Radio Voice of Iran (and chalabi) - if theres an international 'happening' taking place, charlie black has his fingerprints on it. fancy that. chicken or egg?

if you ever wondered why we see on tv (and in policy) the stuff that we actually see, charlie black might be the answer. (their corporate clients include GM, GE and Glaxo (and thats just the G's')).

im not sure where the BKSH name comes from - but the other main guy apart from Black is Gardner Peckham (MD) - "Peckham worked as senior policy advisor to former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on defense, intelligence and international trade issues, as deputy assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs to Secretary Jim Baker and as an aide to national security advisor Brent Scowcroft""

and:

"reminder: bksh is the grandson of Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, and the nephew (or some degenerate offspring) of Davis, Manafort and Freedman."

and:

" BKSH, which is an evolution of Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly. The B is for charlie black - other BMSK-group alumni include Lee Atwater, Roger Stone, John Bolton and Matthew Freedman."

if you can't remember freedman:

"another BMSK alumn is Matthew Freedman - Freedman is the guy who got paid $100k p.a. to hang out in boltons office sometimes - and bolton wouldnt explain why he was there - or what he does - which is one of the reasons the Dems wouldnt bring his nomination to a vote in the senate. freedman refused to tell the sfrc who his clients are - but we know his previous clients include ferdinand marcos and the nigerian govt."

and then there's this, just for fun:

"I flew from Kyrgyzstan to Moscow to meet with other Black Manafort employees who were leading or subcontracted to other US AID projects. While there, I met with US AID officials and expressed my concerns about the project -- chief among them, the prime contractor's inability to keep enough cash in country to allow us to pay bills, which directly resulted in armed threats by Kyrgyz contractors to me and my staff.

Within hours of sending a letter to US AID officials outlining my concerns, I met John Bolton, whom the prime contractor hired as legal counsel to represent them to US AID. And, so, within hours of dispatching that letter, my hell began.

Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel -- throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman. For nearly two weeks, while I awaited fresh direction from my company and from US AID, John Bolton hounded me in such an appalling way that I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there. Mr. Bolton, of course, then routinely visited me there to pound on the door and shout threats."

i could go on - but i'll outsource the rest to starroute:

Charlie Black is of BKSH is the same as this Charlie Black:

In the years of the Watergage scandal, Rove's career as a big-time political handler began with a motley crew of friends and associates. He was chairman of the College Republicans when George Herbert Walker Bush was chairman of the state Republican Party in 1973. He won the presidency of the College Republicans in a race against Terry Dolan. The late Lee Atwater, who later became famous as the political attack dog for the Reagan-Bush team, managed Rove's campaign. Dolan went on to become a Soft Money pioneer by helping form the National Conservative Political Action Committee, then died of AIDS in 1986 at age 36. Dolan's advisers in his loss to Rove were Charlie Black, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone. Those three were later instrumental in the success of Ronald Reagan's 1984 campaign.

Atwater joined the consulting firm of Black, Manafort and Stone after the '84 election. The firm later worked for the 1988 Bush-Quayle campaign. Two of Nixon's dirty tricksters also worked for Bush-Quayle: Frederick Malek, Bush's Republican National Committee rep, who had compiled lists of Jews in the Bureau of Labor Statistics as part of Nixon's investigation of a "Jewish Cabal;" and Dwight Chapin, who was jailed for lying to a grand jury about hiring Donald Sigretti to disrupt the 1972 Democratic primary campaign of Senator Edward Muskie. Chapin worked under Manafort in 1988. The firm's other clients included drug-connected Bahamian Prime Minister Oscar Pindling, Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and UNITA, the South African-supported Angolan rebel group led by CIA asset Jonas Savimbi. Lee Atwater lobbied for UNITA. All of which began when Atwater was introduced to George Bush in 1973, by his good friend Karl Rove.

So what's not to love?

cute.

Kathleen:

"My jaw dropped guys, and may have come unhinged."

If you need any more - follow the links above (all are from this blog), or try searching here or here - or if you just want some random bksh dodginess, see here.