The McCain team has hastily assembled a team of former Bush White House aides to tutor the vice-presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, on foreign-policy issues, to write her speeches and to begin preparing her for her all-important Oct. 2 debate against Sen. Joe Biden.
Yep, that's how McSame has chosen to distance himself from the Shrub Misadminstration - by surrounding Miss Congeniality with SIX, count 'em SIX former Shrub staffers.
Michael Isikoff's Newsweek blog lists six former Bush aides as the team that's been charged with helping Eliza Doolittle - oops, I mean Sarah Palin to mold herself into a credible candidate.
Here's the roster:
Steve Biegun, ex-No. 3 National Security Council official under Condoleezza Rice,now chief foreign-policy adviser to Palin, who left his job as VP for international affairs at Ford to bone Sarah up on, for one, the difference between visiting a country and a refueling stop.
He will be working alongside "McCain’s foreign-policy guru Randy Schuenemann [...] briefing Palin on national-security issues — an area where her resume is conspicuously thin."
Matt Scully, former Bush speechwriter who specialized in major foreign-policy issues during the first term. He's the guy who wrote Palin’s acceptance speech last Wednesday. Matt - loved the slander of community organizers! Nice one!
Mark Wallace, lawyer for the Bush 2000 campaign who was also chief counsel at FEMA (Who ya gonna call?!). He's boning Palin up for the VP debate, presumably coaching her on how best to appear indignant and/or personally wounded whenever Biden questions her "positions".
Nicolle Wallace, Mark's wife, former White House communications director, now doing the same job for Palin.
Tucker Eskew, former senior Bush communications aide, now senior counselor to Palin.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former Bush economist, and now former McSame economics guru, insofar as he is now Palin’s chief domestic-policy adviser.
Writes Isikoff:
The proliferation of former Bush White House aides in the Palin team may strike some as ironic — and could even provide some fodder for the Democrats — given the McCain camp’s efforts to distance itself from the unpopular president.
Ironic?? How about totally hypocritical?
Furthermore:
One administration critic, Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation, said today that while he personally liked Biegun and viewed him as "extremely competent," his retention as Palin’s foreign-policy tutor could have unpleasant consequences. Describing Biegun—a Russia expert who once served as staff director for Sen. Jesse Helms at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—as a "big gun" in conservative foreign-policy circles, Clemens said "he will turn her into an advocate of Cheneyism and Cheney’s view of national-security issues."
There are no words. There is only either seppuku or positive action. The polls are holding (sorta), Intrade still has Obama at 57% (down from 61 a few days ago), electoral-vote.com still has Obama at 301 to 224 if the election were held today (actually up a little since Hurricane Sarah), but that doesn't mean we can continue sitting around talking about it. These motherfuckers hypnotized nearly half of all Americans with total bullshit and STOLE TWO ELECTIONS, and now they're all working to make sure the Palin ploy works.
GET OUT THE VOTE! HELP OBAMA REGISTER NEW VOTERS!