How McCain Became Putin's Stooge

When voters return to the grim task of assessing John McCain's credibility, they may turn to The Nation, which has just exposed yet another highly embarrassing episode in the career of his campaign manager, superlobbyist Rick Davis. This time the issue is not just another special interest represented by Davis, of which there are many examples, but the connections between Davis, the ruling Russian oligarchy, and the government of Vladimir Putin.

Davis seems to have made a lot of money in Montenegro, running an independence campaign that was supported by a starry-eyed McCain (he called it the "the greatest European democracy project since the end of the cold war" ) and a gimlet-eyed Putin (whose cronies and deputies have turned the little patch of former Yugoslavia into "Moscow on the Mediterranean"). Back when Davis was found to have promoted Russian interests in Ukraine, McCain got a pass because he had taken the opposite position.

The Montenegro story features both McCain and his disreputable associates as instruments of Kremlin policy. But there is much more to this story...