Another name in guilt by association

There's the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and William Ayers for Barack Obama.

There's Charles Keating for John McCain.

And in the tit-for-tat, guilt-by-association game going on in the presidential race, there's now John Singlaub for McCain.

The Obama camp today is sending around reports on Singlaub, founder of the US Council for World Freedom, which was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal during the mid-1980s and was criticized for supposed links to Nazi collaborators and right-wing death squads in Central America.

Singlaub told Congress that he helped funnel arms to anti-communist forces in Nicaragua, in violation of a congressional ban. McCain joined the group's advisory board for a time as he was launching his political career in Arizona in the early 1980s.

"McCain was a new guy on the block learning the ropes," Singlaub, a retired major general, told The Associated Press. "I think I met him in the Washington area when he was just a new congressman. We had McCain on the board to make him feel like he wasn't left out. It looks good to have names on a letterhead who are well-known and appreciated.

"I don't recall talking to McCain at all on the work of the group," Singlaub said.

McCain has said previously he resigned from the council in 1984 and asked in 1986 to have his name removed from the group's letterhead, the AP says.