Back in August, Media Blog named MSNBC/Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter “Cheerleader of the Week” for challenging the patriotism of McCain foreign-policy adviser Randy Scheunemann because of his past lobbying for Georgia. The excerpt:

OLBERMANN: But, legally or morally, is there any culpability here with McCain or now, in this construction more directly with his adviser Mr. Scheunemann?
ALTER: Well, culpability I would shy away from. I mean, the Russians did a bad thing.
OLBERMANN: Yes.
ALTER: And they really should not have done this and I‘m not into the idea of sort of blame shifting for their bad behavior, but I do think it is really unseemly that Randy Scheunemann, you know, had this lobbying contract—and it‘s always the second raters, by the way, who are foreign agents or lobbying for foreign governments. The top foreign policy people do it in a more subtle way. Maybe they‘re consultants but they‘re not lobbyists.
So, you know, this really stinks, this whole deal of him, because you don‘t know who he‘s representing. Is he representing the interest of Georgia or the interest of the United States? And you never want to get into a situation like that and it‘s rather—I hate to say it—inexperienced maybe on John McCain‘s part to be putting up with this kind of thing and, also, there‘s the question of whether, in his rhetoric towards Putin, he‘s just been too inflammatory for American interest.

Which leads us to this story out today on President Obama’s chief envoy to the Middle East and his lobbying firm’s ties to Dubai. At least Scheunemann was representing a new democracy. Mitchell’s firm was lobbying to help shield Dubai’s child-trafficking trade:

Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) — George Mitchell, President Barack Obama’s special Middle East troubleshooter, was chairman of a law firm that was paid about $8 million representing Dubai’s ruler in connection with a child-trafficking lawsuit.
The DLA Piper law firm did legal and lobbying work on the case, which alleged that Dubai’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al- Maktoum and another official used children kidnapped from other countries to ride as jockeys in camel races. The firm lobbied federal agencies, members of the U.S. House and about two dozen Senate offices, including those of Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2006 and 2007, according to Justice Department foreign-agent disclosures.
Mitchell, 75, who isn’t a registered lobbyist, didn’t lobby either on this issue or for Dubai generally. DLA Piper partner Bill Minor said in an e-mail that Mitchell, a former Democratic senator from Maine, mainly focused on growth and management at the firm of almost 4,000 attorneys and 65 offices worldwide, and high-profile projects such as an investigation of steroid use in Major League Baseball.
Mitchell’s firm had extensive lobbying clients and offices in the Middle East ranging from the leader of Dubai to a Kuwait construction firm contracting in Iraq. The firm also has offices in Egypt, Oman, Qatar and Abu Dhabi and has an affiliation with a law firm in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Mitchell traveled to Dubai and spoke to the press there about the issue.

Unlike Jonathan Alter, I won’t question George Mitchell’s patriotism, but I would like to know why he and the other MSDNCers don’t see any issues with this.