Another sign that Newt Gingrich is now a first tier candidate, he’s hiring advisers:
Former CIA director R. James Woolsey and Robert McFarlane, national security adviser to President Reagan, have joined Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign as members of his national security advisory team.
(…)
Other members of Gingrich’s advisory team are: David Wurmser, a senior adviser to Vice President Cheney; Bill Schneider, undersecretary of state in the Reagan administration; Norman Bailey, a special assistant on national security to Reagan; Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC); Ken DeGraffenreid, another Reagan national security adviser.
Herman Pirchner, founding president of the AFPC, will be director of the advisory group. Other members include: Tina Ramirez, director of international and government relations for the Becket Fund; Kiron Skinner, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution; Abraham Wagner, who teaches at Columbia University’s school of international and public affairs; and Stephen Yates, a Cheney adviser on national security.
These seem like fairly conventional picks for a Republican, although I’ll say that McFarlane’s name comes as a bit of a surprise. McFarlane, you might recall, was National Security Adviser to Ronald Reagan when the Iran/Contra scandal broke and became famous as the man who went to Iran with a cake in the shape of a key, and a Bible. McFarlane ended up pleading guilty to four misdemeanor charges related to withholding information from Congress. Since then, he’s worked in the private sector as a consultant and adviser. It’s somewhat interesting to see him making a return to politics like this.
