COVERITLIVE.COM

8:47

Jason Linkins - Good morning!

8:49

Megan - Good morning! I think today we should start with a feel-good story, so I propose that we should talk about the Politico story in which former McCain staffers Steve Schmidt, Nicolle Wallace and neocon asshole Randy Scheunemann, with his BFF Bil Kristol, all tear into one another like lionesses into a hurt gazelle over the Todd Purdum Vanity Fair profile.

8:50

Jason Linkins - This article is like a David Foster Wallace novel of backbiting and delight.

8:51

Megan - I am, after my convention experience with Scheunemann, rather obvious Team Schmidt on this one.

And if you're not, or think that Scheunemann's got anything less than antipathy for Wallace, I comment to you this picture.

8:52

Jason Linkins - Seriously. It is the samizdat. I may lapse off into drooling catatonia, staring at the wreckage of these people's lives and relationships with each other.

8:55

Megan - So, to run down: Todd Purdum's thinly-sourced profile of Palin provoked the predictable Republican outrage over his liberal hackiness, and one very intriguing lapse in journalistic ethics, such as they are: Bill Kristol said that former top McCain adviser Steve Schmidt had mentioned to people off the record that he was worried Palin's erratic behavior meant she had postpartum depression, an item that (without attribution) made the Purdum piece.

8:56

Jason Linkins - I have to say, that's an easy call. Of course, Team Schmidt. I mean, with Bill Kristol as the guiding force behind Randy Scheunemann, how could it not be? Kristol is wrong about everything, and everyone, and should be hounded, naked, into the wilderness. He's the guy at the center of making Palin a star, remember, because he wanted something new to leer at, like the cloven hooved shit demon that he is.

8:57

Megan - But that's where it gets interesting! Because, naturally, people then called Schmidt who not only denied the allegations, but said that they'd been made by Kristol via former McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann, who Schmidt and former campaign manager Rick Davis had used computer forensics to finger as the source of damaging allegations in the media against both Nicolle Wallace... and Sarah Palin herself.

8:59

Megan - But let us start with Schmidt's denial, which reads like an indictment of Bill Kristol you might have written on a less profane morning.

Asked about the accusation, Schmidt fired back in an e-mail: “I'm sure John McCain would be president today if only Bill Kristol had been in charge of the campaign.”

“After all, his management of [former Vice President] Dan Quayle’s public image as his chief of staff is still something that takes your breath away,” Schmidt continued. “His attack on me is categorically false.”

9:00

Jason Linkins - Burn on Bill Kristol as Steve Schmidt points his gun into the barrel of fish and opens fire!

9:02

Megan - But then Scheunemann comes to the defense of his dark overlord!
“Steve Schmidt has a congenital aversion to the truth,” Scheunemann said. “On two separate and distinct occasions, he speculated about about Governor Palin having post-partum depression, and on the second he threatened that if more negative publicity about the handling of Governor Palin emerged that he would leak his speculation [about post-partum depression] to the press. It was like meeting Tony Soprano.”
As though an aversion to the truth isn't what a candidate wants his top aides to have?

9:04

Jason Linkins - God. That really does sound exactly like meeting Tony Soprano, though, doesn't it? Randy Scheunemann must have been the McCain campaign's go-to source for pop-cultural metaphoria.

9:05

Jason Linkins - Scheunemann said Schmidt did try to fire him but added: “I’ve got a paystub through November 15th.”

Oooh! SIGNIFICANT! Deal with that!

9:05

Megan - Randy Scheunemann was the person responsible for prepping Palin on foreign policy issues, which obviously explains her inability to correctly identify the Bush Doctrine -- the bigger nuclear policy change this government has made since we invented The Bomb -- in that interview to Charlie Gibson.

Schmidt denies again and refers, obliquely, to personnel issues being the reason Scheunemann is being a dick; so Kristol weighs in again!
“It’s simply a fact that when the going got tough, Steve Schmidt trashed Sarah Palin, both within the campaign and (on background) to journalists. This was after Steve took credit for the Palin pick when, at first, he thought it made him look good. John McCain deserved better.”
You know, like Bill Kristol was the go-to guy for this or something?
Also, I love that this all comes down to -- as you said above -- Kristol not getting enough credit for anointing Sarah Palin.

9:10

Jason Linkins - The thing is, Sarah Palin's overall grasp of foreign policy, to this day, bears the imprimatur of some dipshit like Randy Scheunemann. Meanwhile, here's the type of sentence that only a Jonathan Martin could write:

The vitriol also suggests the degree to which Palin remains a Rorschach test not simply to Republicans nationally but within a tight circle of elite operatives and commentators, many of whom seem ready to carry their arguments in 2012.

I think the vitriol suggests the degree to which the McCain campaign spent the year totally fucking kidding themselves and that to most GOP officials, going forward, the only challenge she presents is one of eliding over her existence in the hopes that voters will cotton to any one of the non-fingerbanging-their-Argentinean-honeypot contenders.

9:13

Jason Linkins - How long before Meghan McCain stages an encounter group for the former McCain advisers on Morning Joe?

9:15

Megan - I think the vitriol suggests they won't all be backing Romney, that's for damn sure. And that they will probably be litigating this at Grover Norquist's Wednesday meetings for 2 more years, and -- if we're damn lucky -- in the press, too.

With regards to Meghan McCain, you and I are NOT that lucky, though the idea of it is enough to make me a praying woman.

But it gets better! Because Kristol's second volley unleashes the beast in Steve Schmidt! And he then confirms that after a series of ugly leaks about Palin and campaign debates about Palin, he and Davis went on a witch hunt and came up with Scheunemann.
“What was discovered was an email from a very senior staff member to Bill Kristol that then entered into the news current and continued the negative in-fighting stories for an additional news cycles. I recommended tough medicine for that individual that was carried out,” Schmidt said, again referring to Scheunemann. “Bill Kristol might not have liked that decision, and he might be mad about what happened to his friend, but going all the way back he has been a part of this story and I’ve preserved his confidentiality in that until now. But his use of his public forums to take a personal fight and make character attacks is just simply dishonest and wrong.”
That "certain staff member" is, naturally Scheunemann, who with this series of attacks has become like Voldemort to Schmidt. He Who Can Not Be Named, Shamed or (according to Kristol) Blamed.

9:18

Jason Linkins - I have to caution you. Comparing Randy to Voldemort is a really mean thing to do to rampaging half-dead amoral wizards who haunt the dreams of children.

9:19

Jason Linkins - He's more like a Wormtail. If I have my Harry Potter right. My wife is not yet awake.

9:19

Jason Linkins - My wife being the in-house Harry Potter expert. Oops! I mean "sexpert."

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