About Schmidt
Linking to the Buzzfeed article about an unnamed McCain staffer responding to Obama’s “the private sector is doing fine” mega-gaffe last week…
“McCain was trying to calm people at a moment of real crisis — i think his intentions were good,” one former top aide said in an email. “Obama’s just trying to build support for raising taxes and make the case for his own stewardship.”
Another former McCain aide was blunter.
“We very much look forward watching Team Romney put Obama’s head in a vice over this,” he emailed “What goes around comes around, assholes.”
… Moe Lane asks, “Where Was This Attitude in ’08?” As Moe writes, “I just want to know why the heck we didn’t see this attitude more, back in the day. And by ‘more’ I mean ‘at all.’”
Where was this attitude four years ago? It was submerged into a late campaign primal scream over the bias of the New York Times. Let’s flashback to what Stacy McCain wrote in early October of 2008:
I didn’t comment on it at the time, but I was shocked when Steve Schmidt lashed out at the New York Times on Sept. 22. Every word Schmidt said about the NYT being in the tank for Obama was true. But you don’t do that. Ever. Not in a campaign you have any hope of winning. It is one thing to criticize specific errors by specific reporters, but for a presidential campaign manager to call into question the fundamental integrity of a newspaper that more or less dictates news coverage at the three major broadcast networks? Uh uh. No way. Leave that work to surrogates. Then Wednesday, in an interview with the Associated Press, McCain himself got all hostile with the reporter. That is tantamount to an admission of defeat.
Evidently, Schmidt and the Gray Lady have since patched things up in a big way, with Schmidt receiving a fawning profile in tomorrow’s Sunday Times titled “A Career Resurrected After McCain and Palin”:
Other advisers to Mr. McCain have scurried into obscurity. By contrast, Mr. Schmidt — television commentator and public relations executive, delivering speeches and wisdom on the politics of the day — has a higher profile than ever, and stands as evidence that there may be little cost to being associated with a losing campaign and a disastrous political misjudgment, as Mr. Schmidt now describes the Palin selection.
Mr. Schmidt, who walked the red carpet at the Washington and New York openings of HBO’s “Game Change,” has become a minor celebrity in nonpolitical circles: Mr. Harrelson, in an interview last week, described him as a “buddy” and recounted how he persuaded Mr. Schmidt to be his date to the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in April, and to the exclusive pre- and after-parties, no matter that the night happened to fall on Mr. Schmidt’s wedding anniversary.
“We went everywhere together,” Mr. Harrelson said. “We would be at a party, and people would say to me, ‘You know the guy you played is over there.’ And I was like ‘Yeah, I know. I came with him.’ At this point, I feel quite fond of him.”
Mr. Schmidt is the vice chairman for public affairs of one of the world’s biggest public relations firms, Edelman. He is a regular commentator on MSNBC, which has installed a remote camera in his sprawling rustic home. He is quoted on TV and in newspapers, including The New York Times.
Because, yeah, that’s what Republicanism — let alone conservatism — is all about: making friends with Woody Harrelson, HBO, MSNBC, and the New York Times. Schmidt now has access to the rarest of clubs — the Axis of Davids, where Mssrs. Frum, Brooks, and Gergen will be happy to give him a tour of T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII’s private country club.
Rish Limbaugh has a hysterical parody (from 2008) about McLame’s panic as he realizes his flame, “the Old Gray Lady,” is dumping him…’But you said we be together forever!..And now you’re running off with…Obama?!”…He runs it all the time in his online show, and these McLamers persist in playing the role…
Clueless cubed.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2012/03/08/game-change-evidence-rests
The link indicates most of the lies, omissions, and distortions, that Schmidt and Wallace have continued to spread over the last 3 1/2 years,
Too bad Schmidt didn’t head up McRINO’s Senate re-election campaign in 2010 instead of Palin coming to the rescue in a misplaced sense of loyalty.
Yep. That would have been the end of McCain, and good riddance.
Palin’s endorsements have been her worst blunders. She makes it seem like she’s groveling at the RINO altar.
“head in a vise” not “vice.” Unless you are British.
I’m just quoting Buzzfeed there.
And Perry and Bachman, and everyone else who didn’t come to her defense during Tucson,
You know, Rush has been saying for years that nobody’s ever written a book about the great moderates in history.
He’s right. Of course.
Moderation only makes a candidate or elected official or, in this case, a political operative seem phony, confused, or equivocal. And nobody’s interested in affirming this kind of behavior except for elite institutions. Elite institutions are almost 100% liberal institutions, and that includes most every GOP leadership institution.
Steve Schmidt is a case study in what that gets you, and why it’s worthless to anyone outside the elite institution to which that particular individual belongs.
Schmidt’s insistence upon so many lies being truths, and the perquisites he’s gained through that insistence speaks to the disconnected and shallow postmodernist bubble these people live in, and why McCain and his miserable ilk were so soundly thrashed by the broad middle is conservative America in 2010.
Back to Rush: any political operative or consultant who counsels moderation deserves to be fired; and any candidate who takes seriously such counsel deserves to lose.
“… wanting to get in bed with the Gray Prostitute…”
FIFY
It’s not even a prostitue. It should be called the old grey slag. It’s a matressback for the socialist wing of the democrat party. A prostitue deserves more respect.
Strange New Respect: it’s not just for Supreme Court Justices anymore.
“Doing well by doing good” has been replaced by “Doing fabulously well by breaking solemn pledges and betraying people who counted on you.”
Anybody remember Bart Stupak? How is he doing?
Anybody remember Bart Stupak? How is he doing?
I keep wondering why he is not interviewed by anyone and asked how he feels now about 0b0z0′s promise about abortion etc.
BTW, someone suggested we remember supreme court judge and the name of holder.
Kind of puts it in perspective, doesn’t it?
Meh, political operatives really have no loyalties. They cannot afford to have them. They gotta work, and the number of potential clients is very limited. Look at Dick Morris, who works for Fox News. He was Clinton’s chief political operative… and he is a Republican!
So, Schmidt ran a lousy campaign. I did not see him working for any of the numerous Republican candidates this year, so what else is he gonna do for a living? Easy. He goes to work for the Leftist Press. He gets touted as the big-name Republican they can quote, as he does their dirty work for them. And the Left lionizes him, because he’s the Republican who sticks it to the Republicans.
He just better be careful to not forget that he is just the house ni… er, ummm, Republican. Better not ever get uppity.
Steve Schmidt is 2012′s Levi Johnston.
Ouch!
Thank you! I was trying to decide the level of SLEEZE Schmidt could obtain.
He is a loser. Was glad to hear he isn’t with Romney.
Every time I think about that boob, McCain, I want to wail on the heavy bag until I can’t lift my arms. He was genuinely shocked the liberal media turned on him? I wish I could I was surprised. It must be this kind of naiveté that made him the ultimate Manchurian puppet to get squashed by the Democrats.
The only shock came when the dolts of Arizona put him back into office after his sudden conversion of conservatism, that of course, he quickly abandoned the minute the election was over and he traded his Elephant for an ass at the Arizona border for his trek back to his real home state, the District of Columbia.
I know why they did it. The same reason for all the hoopla I knew Harry Reid would get reelected. Who wants interrupt the gravy train by replacing a senior senator in a leadership position with a junior one.
Steve Schmidt is to be ignored. He ran a lousy campaign in 2008. He is about himself.
I’ve never liked this guy,even less after he stabbed Palin in the back.
Schmidt is a loser. I don’t listen to losers. This is the only country that I now of where losers do very, very, well on television, from Joe Trippi and Eliot Spitzer to Van Jones and Bob Shrum. Pretty soon you’ll be seeing Anthony Weiner giving political advice on TV. Maybe Schmidt could give some political advice to a person running for dog catcher somewhere. Sounds like something that’s more up his alley.
In that case, my money is on the dog.
“… and stands as evidence that there may be little cost to being associated with a losing campaign and a disastrous political misjudgment, as Mr. Schmidt now describes the Palin selection.”
He still does not realize that the “disaster” was in not making use of Palin’s strengths? Or, does he mean, “Oops, we almost won”?
Is he one of those rare cases where a traitor is honored by those he sold out to? Or was he on the Donkey payroll from the start and regarded as a heroic spy/sabatour?
How dumb do you have to be to think that a kind word from Woody Harrelson is valuable? This guy is dumb even by Hollywood standards, and (gasp!) he’s kind of washed up.
One of the oldest gems in politics is…Two whores do not a virgin make.
Every time I hear anything about the traitor McCain, I realize that so many better men died in Vietnam than this cheap azz fool!
Schmidt and McCain deserve each other. If not for them, we would have had McCain/Palin administration. Schmidt should be hiding his face in shame, really, for the truly lousy job that he did in 2008.
We know Schmidt was a plant and campaign wrecker( Not that weak kneed RINO’S needed a lot to destroy McCain.) Mitt Romney better watch out for the same type of advisors.
I always suspected that Steve Schmidt and possibly some others in the McCain campaign like Nicolle Wallace were actually working for the other side. No one could have better designed a campaign that was always intended to lose gracefully. This attempt at political rehabilitation by the New York Times only confirms my suspicion.