Perrier to McCain for Firing Top-Level Leaker

Caleb Howe invented a segment for our radio show, "Kool-Aid or Perrier," the former meaning you did unfortunate things to the pooch, the latter denoting commendable behavior. While I just got finished awarding McCain a pitcher of Kool-Aid, I must now bestow a 1 litre bottle of Perrier.

The Huffington Post is reporting that the McCain campaign secretly fired Randy Scheunemann last week for the best of reasons:

One of the aides tells CNN that campaign manager Rick Davis fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading "disinformation" about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials.

While the story only identifies one specific leak, I am awarding the Perrier on the basis that the Scheunemann firing is in response to a series of leaks so heinous that even I was forced to come to Sarah Palin's defense. That, and because Scheunemann was one of McCain's more repugnant surrogates.

The leaks in question were unmistakably, sickeningly sexist, and while McCain may have a tin ear and a poor record with women's issues, I commend this effort to rid his campaign of open hostility toward its own female contingent.



You may recall that the leaker, or leakers, told the press that Palin was a "diva" who trusted no-one, not even her family, and that she was a "whack-job." Scheunemann is specifically implicated in a leak blaming McCain staffer Nicole Wallace for the $150,000.00 shopping binge, in direct conflict with the documented facts. This was a plain attempt to marginalize Wallace and Palin as self-interested "shop-a-holics," uninterested in the serious business of politics.

Palin has her own vat of legitimate Kool-Aid coming her way, but nobody should tolerate these sorts of attacks on her. The wardrobe uber-malfunction, in my humble, falls not at Palin's feet, but the RNC's. Someone ordered Jeff Larson to go and glam her up to the tune of $150K. This was indicative of a ham-fisted disconnect between Palin's cultivated "Joe Six-Pack" image and the campaign's vision of what a female candidate should look like. I seriously doubt that Palin had any say or input at all.

I've also got to assign an envelope full of unsweetened Kool-Aid to The New Agenda, who vowed in a press release to be a watchdog against sexist attacks, yet sat silently while Scheunemann (et al?) let Palin have it.

Tommy Christopher co-hosts "Unusable Signal" , on BlogTalkRadio Tues - Thur at 9pm, and Fri, & Sat at 11pm. Click here for the Unusable Signal homepage.