"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
...
Hmmm...now which winger is lying?

TMT

McCain camp: Palin account 'all fiction'
Andy Barr, Jonathan Martin Andy Barr, Jonathan Martin
Fri Nov 13, 5:49 pm ET

Top aides to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign hit back at
Sarah Palin Friday and Saturday, calling the former vice presidential
nominee’s soon-to-be-released book “revisionist and self serving”
“fiction.”

Campaign manager Steve Schmidt, who emerges as Palin’s nemesis in the
advance excerpts that have surfaced from her forthcoming account of
the campaign, “Going Rogue,” told POLITICO Saturday that Palin's
charges about him were made up.

"It's all fiction," he said.

With a laugh, the shaved-headed political operative asked: "Why is the
bald guy always the villain?"

Schmidt, Palin writes, was “grim-faced” and “cool,” and tried to pin
the campaign’s troubles on what he claimed was Palin’s post-partum
depression, and even went to so far as to try and dictate her diet.

According to excerpts published on the Huffington Post, Palin “took in
his rotund physique and noted that he used nicotine to keep his own
cognitive connections humming along.”

“I'm a forty-four year old, healthy, athletic woman raising five kids
and governing a large state, I thought as his words faded into a
background buzz. Sir, I really don't know you yet. But you've told me
how to dress, what to say, who to talk to, a lot of people not to talk
to, who my heroes are supposed to be and we're still losing. Now
you're going to tell me what to eat?”

A top McCain strategist familiar with the exchange over Palin's
appearance said that Schmidt and campaign manager Rick Davis
approached the vice presidential nominee about the matter because
people on her plane were concerned about her weight loss.

"We told her that her health came first and offered to get her a
nutritionist," said the strategist.

More generally, Palin uses the book to note the “jaded aura” of the
"professional political caste" guiding McCain:

"But I did notice... funny things [about the handlers] that even Piper
commented on — such as tumbling out of the bus in a pack, lighting
cigarettes as they went so it looked like a walking smoke cloud with
legs."

Palin also faults Schmidt for his penchant for profanity, writing that
he warned her just before the vice-presidential campaign that
“moderator Gwen Ifill is "going to f*** with you."

"I'm thinking, Why are you telling me this? Last minute... what's the
point? And no more f-bombs around Piper, please?"

According to excerpts from copies obtained by media outlets, Palin
charges that the staffers assigned to her by McCain’s team blocked her
from speaking to the press aboard the campaign plane. And she asserts
that former McCain communications aide Nicole Wallace ‘pushed’ her to
do a September 2008 interview with CBS’s Katie Couric that resulted in
serious damage to the former Alaska governor’s image.

“Aboard the campaign plane I was within twenty-five feet of reporters
for hours on end. Headquarters’ strategy was that I should not go to
the back of the aircraft and talk to the press,” Palin wrote,
according to an excerpt that appeared Friday on the Drudge Report
website. “At first this was subtle, but as the campaign wore on,
[campaign aides] Tracey [Schmitt] or Tucker [Eskew] would call
headquarters to request permission, and someone in DC would respond,
‘No! Absolutely not—block her if she tries to go back.’”

The excerpt also described Wallace as having aggressively “pushed for
Katie Couric and the CBS Evening News” because “Katie really needed a
career boost.”

Former McCain strategist John Weaver slammed Palin for using the book
for “petty and pathetic” score-settling.

“Sarah Palin reminds me of Jimmy Stewart in the movie 'Harvey,'
complete with imaginary conversations. All books like these are
revisionist and self-serving, by definition,” Weaver wrote in an email
to POLITICO. “But the score-settling by someone who wants to be
considered a serious national player is petty and pathetic.”

“The problem wasn't who her interview was with, the problem was her
interview,” he added. “Couric asked no trick questions. This just
seems to be an attempt to obscure as bad a performance since Roger
Mudd asked Ted Kennedy that simple question.”

Palin also pins blame on the campaign for the decision to provide her
and her family with a new $150,000 wardrobe, writing that she was
aghast at the price of the items provided. Discussing her speech at
the Republican convention, she cracks, "The kids looked great — even
in a bunch of borrowed clothes."

Longtime McCain hand and former campaign manager Mark Salter offered a
cooler response disputing Palin’s account, and told POLITICO in an
email that it does not line up with his memory of events.

Explaining the campaign’s decision to limit press access as Election
Day drew closer, Salter said that “after we had been criticized in the
press for a lack of disciplined messaging earlier in the campaign when
we provided frequent and unscheduled access to the candidate, we felt
it necessary to adopt the same deliberativeness and discipline
employed by our opponents and rely less on impromptu press conferences
with our traveling press, and more on interviews arranged in advance
so our candidates would have the same opportunity our opponents
enjoyed to discuss and prepare for the interview.”

Reflecting on the first set of interviews Palin did as the GOP vice
presidential nominee, Salter said that the sit downs were “discussed
and agreed to by senior members of the campaign staff in consultation
with the candidate” and that Wallace did not choose either the
journalists or the outlets Palin spoke to.

“Nicolle Wallace, along with others, was tasked with helping the
Governor prepare for some of her interviews. She did not decide which
interview requests the candidates would accept. Nor was she tasked
with securing the candidates’ agreement,” Salter said.

“Those decisions were made by campaign management in consultation with
the candidates. Campaign management and the candidates agreed to multi-
segment interviews so the Governor would maintain a presence in the
media while she was in debate prep,” he added. “And to the best of my
knowledge, any interviews the Governor had with the individuals she
referred to were approved and arranged by the campaign management with
her agreement.”

Palin did not respond to a request for comment.


She's a hottie. Trimming out irrelevant groups, thanks!