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!

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