Quote of the day
Hot Air » Top Picks — ... to McCain who is also close to the Standard editor and was thought to be a Palin ally within the campaign.‘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 .’ Schmidt said Scheunemann’s charges were ‘categorically untrue.’… ...

Newspaper Roundup for July 1, 2009
CNSNews.com Headlines — ... Russia follows through on casino ban BBC: Vegetarians 'avoid more cancers' BBC: 'Ugly' fruit back on sale in EU BBC: UN begins Bhutto assassination inquiry Los Angeles Times: Drug war on another border: Canada Washington Post: Term Saw Supreme Court Move to The Right Roberts-Led March Likely to Continue Los Angeles Times: Coach, principal being disciplined over 'Bruno' photos Politico: Fox News goes 10 for 10 Politico: Sarah Palin story sparks Republican family feud Politico: Why Norm Coleman lost ...

Sarah Palin story sparks Republican family feud
Democratic Underground Latest Breaking News — ... shadows with anonymous quotes. Now, however, some of the most well-known names in Republican politics are going on-the-record with personal attacks and blame-casting. William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard and at times an informal adviser to Sen. John McCain, touched off the latest back-and-forth Tuesday morning with a post on his magazine’s blog criticizing the Todd Purdum-authored Palin story and pointing a finger at Steve Schmidt, McCain’s campaign manager. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24392.html Republicans eating their own! Yay!

Early Morning Swim
Firedoglake — Wingnut fight. In-depth profile of the GOP's 2012 front-runner. Uh, no one freaking lives there? The CNBC guys need a collective nap. Would 80 be enough? Green tech = job killer. What Cole said. Guess who reads Politico? Share

Excitable Andy Still Pushing Trig Twooferism
Pirate's Cove — ... Meanwhile, in other Palin news, a Vanity Fair piece opens old wounds. Supposedly. Maybe inside the beltway, but, most of us out in the base could care less what the insiders caught by the system and act like Democrat Lite care. ...

Excitable Andy Still Pushing Trig Twooferism
Stop The ACLU — ... , while sitting in for Sully. [image] [image] You’d think photo evidence would be enough, but, no. He still runs with insane conspiracy theory. One which most on the Left, and he is most definitely on the Left, the far, far, far left, one which they won’t touch. Others: Meanwhile, in other Palin news, a Vanity Fair piece opens old wounds . Supposedly. Maybe inside the beltway, but, most of us out in the base could care less what the insiders caught by the system and act like Democrat Lite care.» Filed Under ...

Palin Story Opens Old Wounds
Taegan Goddard's Political Wire — ... on Sarah Palin in the new Vanity Fair has touched off a blistering exchange of insults among high-profile Republicans over last year's GOP ticket -- tearing open fresh wounds about leaks surrounding Palin and revealing for the first time some of the internal wars that paralyzed the campaign in its final days," reports Politico. ...

McCain Staff Leakers, Whomever You Are, Are Scum, Should Be Outed, And Should Never Get Another Job
Dr. Melissa Clouthier — ... It speaks ill of John McCain that his former aids continue to bash Sarah Palin. It speaks ill of John McCain that he did not vociferously and ardently defend his running mate as she did him, post election. ...

Excitable Andy Still Pushing Trig Twooferism
Right Wing News — ... , while sitting in for Sully. [image] [image] You'd think photo evidence would be enough, but, no. He still runs with insane conspiracy theory. One which most on the Left, and he is most definitely on the Left, the far, far, far left, one which they won't touch. Others: Meanwhile, in other Palin news, a Vanity Fair piece opens old wounds . Supposedly. Maybe inside the beltway, but, most of us out in the base could care less what the insiders caught by the system and act like Democrat Lite care.

The Early Word: Road Tours for Health and Rural Access
The Caucus — ... documenting the deep estrangement between McCain advisers and Gov. Sarah Palin during last year’s presidential campaign has sparked further feuding. Politico’s Jonathan Martin revs up the acrimony , with new quotes from Bill Kristol, Steve Schmidt and others. Sanford’s Tragic Love Story : Just when it seemed as though Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina had waded through the revelations of his affair with an Argentinian and gone back to work, he kept spilling more details about flirtations with other women and an expanded list of rendezvous moments with his lover. The Times’s ...

GOP Operative Schmidt Blasts Bill Kristol: ‘He’s In The Business Of Ad Hominem Insults And Criticism’
Think Progress — ... in the McCain-Palin campaign.” And now Schmidt is firing back by unloading some very candid rhetorical bombs against Kristol. Politico’s Jonathan Martin reports: ...

Sarah Palin: The verbal hits just keep on comin’
Sister Toldjah — ... that played fast and loose with the facts, and contained more personal attacks – including those by disgruntled “former McCain staffers/higher ups” who are now engaged in a nasty public he said/she said battle – than constructive criticisms. ...

McCain Staff Leakers, Whomever You Are, Are Scum, Should Be Outed, And Should Never Get Another Job
Right Wing News — It speaks ill of John McCain that his former aids continue to bash Sarah Palin . It speaks ill of John McCain that he did not vociferously and ardently defend his running mate as she did him, post election. I have a reminder to the geniuses at the McCain camp: YOU LOST. BADLY. Now, there's all sorts of explanations as to why that happened, but I put the blame on the leader's shoulders: John McCain's. His message was all over the road. His methods stunk. (He bought an iPhone after the election for crimeny sake--some of that "really cool" technology might have helped him during ...

Jonathan Martin of the Politico Raises the Bar on "Opinons on Shape of Earth Differ" Journamalism
J. Bradford DeLong's Grasping Reality with All Eight Tentacles — ... Jonathan Martin - POLITICO.com: 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. Was Palin a fresh talent whose debut was mishandled by self-serving campaign insiders, or an eccentric “diva” who had no business on the national stage? Going forward, does she offer a conservative and charismatic face for a demoralized and star-less party? Or is she a loose cannon who should be ...

A delayed food fight
Political Animal — ... aides to cast the Alaska governor in a very unflattering light. "They can't quite believe that for two frantic months last fall, caught in a Bermuda Triangle of a campaign, they worked their tails off to try to elect as vice president of the United States someone who, by mid-October, they believed for certain was nowhere near ready for the job, and might never be," the article reports. The piece seems to have had an immediate impact. Indeed, the article has apparently instigated something of a food fight among some leading figures in the Republican establishment. A ...

It’s Republican “Family Feud” (Or Civil War?) Over Sarah Palin
The Moderate Voice — ... According to The Politico, it is now all out verbal war among some in the GOP over this piece — with some prominent Republicans defending Palin and others the comments by McCain former staffers that appeared in the magazine. Is this Family Feud or signs of an ongoing civil war that could reach its peak in 2012? ...

PALIN: THE WAR CONTINUES
Right Wing Nut House — ... Schmidt, et al stop talking about the campaign as if it were all about them. Their incompetence elected Barack Obama and gave us the dumbest, densest Vice President in history (Funny no one does a hit piece on the horribly gaffe prone Joe Biden and his friends in the credit card industry who have made him a wealthy man.) And yet, here they are, snarling, sniping, and acting like 12 year old little girls at a slumber party who break off into little cliques dishing dirt on someone across the room: “Steve Schmidt has a congenital aversion to the truth,” Scheunemann said. “On two ...

Palin Wars
The Corner on National Review Online — Wednesday, July 01, 2009 [image] Palin Wars [Tevi Troy] The Politico has a very gossipy piece today on the fights between the McCain and Palin camps over Todd Purdum s Palin piece in Vanity Fair . Apparently, Bill Kristol and Randy Scheuenemann are blaming Steve Schmidt for many of the anti-Palin stories, including suggestions that the governor was mentally unstable. Schmidt, for his part, denies this, but says he did have a hand in initiating a search of outgoing e-mails from the campaign that led to Schuenemann s reported dismissal. Schuenemann, however, denies being ...

McCain-Palin campaign wounds reopen
The Swamp — by Mark Silva Todd Purdum's piece about Sarah Palin in Vanity Fair has ripped a Band-Aid off the wounds of the McCain-Palin campaign, and it's not a pretty sight: Politico tells the McCainPalin-camp in-and-out-flighting tale: William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and an informal adviser to Palin, complained publicly about a Purdum passage in Vanity Fair's August issue about "some top aides" who had worrie about the Alaska governor's "mental state" during ...

Shorter
Rising Hegemon — I've condensed this hilarious Politico article for you below. W.K.: "So I said, like, 'S.S. is a poopy-headed liar! Everyone hates him!' And then I was all, 'Get lost! You can't play on my team!'" S.S.: "Well, I was all, 'Like, you're such a, like, big big loser and like John McCain would have won if a big loser like you had run the campaign? I'm sure!'" R.S.: "And I was all, like, 'W.K.'s right! S.S. is a big fat stupid-head and no one likes him!" S.S: "Oh yeah! Well, I'm, like, taking my ball and like, going right home! Right after I ...

No More Mister Nice Blog — ... I gather from Politico that there's a huge, multi-sided GOP feud going on in response to the Vanity Fair article about Sarah Palin -- or, more accurately, the article has reignited an old feud (or feuds) -- and my thought is, um, is it OK if I root for everyone to lose? ...

Wednesday Updates on Gaza, Mexico, and Sarah Palin
Notes From a Grumpy Old Man — ... Wednesday seems like a slow news day, I guess we'll have to wait until Obama goes to Russia for the confrontational lovefest to begin. In the meantime, Politico has a lengthy piece on the GOP's reaction to a story on Sarah Palin in the current Vanity Fair: "A hard-hitting piece on Sarah Palin in the new Vanity Fair has touched off a blistering exchange of insults among high-profile Republicans over last year’s GOP ticket – tearing open fresh wounds about leaks surrounding Palin and revealing for the first time some of the ...

Palin’s Story Divides Republicans
Patterico's Pontifications — ... Politico headlines this week’s GOP feud featuring Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and former McCain campaign chairman Steve Schmidt: ...

How Lucky Are Those Damn Democrats?
DownWithTyranny! — ... until he met the Argentine in Uruguay. The only thing that's keeping him in office now is that the South Carolina GOP doesn't want a gay governor-- not even a closeted one who charms little old ladies who think he's "a devil-may-care bachelor." It isn't even just the legendary GOP backstabbing as much as it is their well earned spate of bad luck. It's pretty much all covered in these paragraphs from today's Politico though-- an example of why the Democrats manage to thrive, primarily a function of any reasonable alternative-- and it starts with GOP extreme right ...

Chuck Todd, Mike Murphy Discuss GOP's 'Circular Firing Squad' Over Sarah Palin (VIDEO)
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... slamming Sarah Palin came out. Now Politico's Jonathan Martin has come out with a piece in which the sniping has blown up into an all-out war inside the Republican party. ...

The mother of all personnel disputes
Power Line — ... depression following the birth of her son Trig. This, in turn, re-opened the dispute about who was responsible for anti-Palin leaks during the 2008 campaign itself. Kristol accused Schmidt; Schmidt denied the allegation and claimed that Kristol was motivated by Schmidt's attempts to have one of Kristol's friends fired for other leaks. Kristol's friend, Randy Schuenemann, then seconded the allegation that Schmidt indulged in anti-Palin leaks during the campaign. The Politico has a good summary of the dispute. And if you really want to get into the weeds, ...

Jenny Sanford, Feminist Icon
Pajamas Media — ... banking vice presidency (Lazard Freres) — and may be tougher, too, at least when it comes to husbands. Yes, quite shocking that a knuckle-dragging Christian wife can show more moxie and class than Elliot Spitzer’s wife or Jim McGreevey’s spouse, who were dragged to pressers and to one degree or another were involved in the cover-up and excuse mongering that accompanied their husbands’ political downfall. This is more than a little reminiscent of the Sarah Palin feeding frenzy (which seems never to die ). The sight of a non-liberal, overtly religious, self-possessed woman sends ...

links for 2009-07-02
J. Bradford DeLong's Grasping Reality with All Eight Tentacles — ... The one with the highballed 2004 payroll employment forecast--table 3.1 Sarah Palin story sparks Republican family feud - Jonathan Martin - POLITICO.com Steven ...

No More Mister Nice Blog — ... over for eight months, and still there's feuding and fighting between the McCain-loyalist idiots who mismanaged the senator's presidential campaign and the idiot they helped choose as his running mate, as well as the running-mate idiot's idiot loyalists in the press. McCain loyalists leak shamelessly to Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum. William "Unrequited" Kristol leaps to his true love's defense, accusing McCainiac Steve Schmidt of being the key leaker. Other '08ers leap in and swap charges. And now snappish campaign e-mails are showing up in a CBS ...

The mother of all personnel disputes, Part Two
Power Line — ... The gossipy nature of the dispute between Steve Schmidt and Bill Kristol over the anti-Palin leaks by the McCain campaign last year (and the breezy conclusion to my ...

William Bradley: The GOP's Palin Food Fight: Why Now?
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... In the aftermath of the Vanity Fair piece on Palin, in which ranking John McCain aides talked about how difficult she was to deal with, Politico ran a story prompted by the post-VF piece battle between commentator Kristol and Schmidt, who managed Schwarzenegger's landslide re-election and, after working for months without pay as McCain rebuilt his campaign, took it over last summer. The story is long and complex, but worth checking out. What Politico, which is really a conservative publication, doesn't get into is why Kristol launched the attack. ...

What Does the McCain Campaign Infighting Say About Our Political Leadership?
PoliGazette —

So much Palin, so little time
The Reaction — By Michael J.W. Stickings I've been meaning to comment for a few days now on Sarah Palin's recent reemergence in the news, specifically on that huge, meandering, and only vaguely satisfying Todd Purdum piece in Vanity Fair, on all the Republican infighting (specifically the Kristol-Schmidt squabble and Schmidt's role in the Todd-Palin-AIP issue back during the campaign -- Palin comes out of it, as you might expect, looking like a self-absorbed moron), and on the still-ongoing Palin '12 ...

The eve of what?
Classical Values — The eve of what? Sarah Palin has resigned -- on the eve of the Fourth of July, and right in the middle of the reporting of a Republican family feud . I hope M. Simon is not right about this : It looks like Andrew "I had Trig Palin's Baby" Sullivan and the rest of the Palin haters have caused Sarah Palin to decline to run for a second term as Alaska's Governor. Because if Simon is right, people will say that Sarah Palin should have stood up to Andrew Sullivan and stayed . Sean Kinsell links Stephen Green , who says this: I ...

Kristol on Obama: ‘He is an arrogant man.’
Think Progress — ... that the president took time out of his busy schedule to attempt to resolve this situation.” In a statement, Cambridge police officers said, “It is clear to us from this conversation that the president respects police officers and the often difficult and dangerous situations we face on a daily basis.” As former McCain campaign adviser Steve Schmidt said of Kristol, “He’s in the business of ad hominem insults and criticism.” Schmidt observed, “That’s a reflection of [Kristol’s] values. He’s the Washington, D.C., talking head and glitterati.” ...

CNN?s Howard Kurtz Criticizes CNN?s Lou Dobbs For Giving Airtime To ?Birther? Conspiracies
The Hollywood Liberal — ... .” Schmidt observed, “That’s a reflection of [Kristol’s] values . He’s the Washington, D.C., talking head and glitterati.” This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 4:36 am and is filed under ...