The appointment of Chas Freeman will be a continuing source of embarrassment for the Obama administration, with the next shoe set to drop sometime this month when Congress gets a chance to pore over Freeman's financial disclosure forms. Given that concern about Freeman's ability to serve has centered on his financial dependence on two regimes that provide very real intelligence challenges for the United States -- China and Saudi Arabia -- the disclosure forms will provide additional fodder for the press and problems for Obama. For example, Freeman served as a member of the international advisory board of CNOOC, a state-owned Chinese oil company. In 2005, CNOOC attempted to buy Unocal, an American oil and gas firm, for $18.5 billion in cash. The offer was eventually withdrawn after Democrats and Republicans in Congress became concerned about the sale. Freeman was brought on the board just a year earlier, perhaps in an attempt to pave the way for such a transaction. As seems so often to be the case, Freeman was unconcerned about the politics of his paymasters. Just as he continued doing business with the bin Ladens in the wake of 9/11, Freeman continued doing business with CNOOC, presumably right up to his appointment to the Obama White House. The terms of that arrangement will be one of the many interesting revelations in Freeman's financial disclosure forms, along with just how much money the Saudi royals have gifted him over the last decade, and a report from the inspector general into Freeman's ties to the Saudis, requested by Reps. Kirk and Israel, may soon follow. As Jamie Kirchick writes today in the Politico:
Running for president in 1992, Bill Clinton attacked George H.W. Bush for being too cozy with the "Butchers of Beijing." However hot that language might have been at the time, its accuracy cannot be disputed. Moreover, it hearkened back to a time when Democratic leaders weren't reluctant to speak of moral distinctions in foreign policy for fear of earning snickers from the ironic left. Meanwhile, the petro-theocrats and "butchers" must be happy knowing Barack Obama has elevated one of their saps to high office.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Chait has another piece on Freeman in the new issue of TNR, this time responding to the utterly predictable and thoroughly dishonest defense of Freeman by Stephen Walt. Chait is also worth reading in full. When an administration manages to get a controversial appointment confirmed, it has the effect of wiping the slate clean -- washing away whatever sins the appointee had in his past, which are aired in front of the public and deemed insufficient to prevent the appointment. However, when an administration appoints a man like Chas Freeman to a post that doesn't require Senate confirmation, there tends to be a slow drip of negative press that puts the entire administration in a bad light. Why did Obama allow Dennis Blair to appoint his old friend Chas to this job in the first place?