Palin on the leaker: A “small, evidently bitter type of person”

posted at 1:41 pm on November 6, 2008 by Allahpundit
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Frum thinks he knows who that small, bitter person is, but the fact that he has his own issues with her colors the assessment. Meanwhile, an important footnote to last night’s fingerpointing speculation: Randy Scheunemann, Palin’s chief loyalist within Team Maverick, apparently was not fired by the campaign for leaking, contrary to CNN’s report yesterday. From today’s Times piece on the “civil war”:

Advisers in the McCain campaign, in suggesting that Palin advisers had been leaking damaging information about the McCain campaign to the news media, said they were particularly suspicious of Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s top foreign policy aide who had a central role in preparing Ms. Palin for the vice-presidential debate.

As a result, two senior members of the McCain campaign said on Wednesday that Mr. Scheunemann had been fired from the campaign in its final days. But Rick Davis, the McCain campaign manager, and Mr. Salter, one of Mr. McCain’s closest advisers, said Wednesday that Mr. Scheunemann had in fact not been dismissed. Mr. Scheunemann, who picked up the phone in his office at McCain campaign headquarters on Wednesday afternoon, responded that “anybody who says I was fired is either lying or delusional or a whack job.”

More from CNN:

Scheunemann, who was widely viewed as a supporter of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, admitted people were trying to push him out of the campaign. But he said that [Michael] Goldfarb, his ally, was incorrect when he told CNN that Scheunemann’s blackberry had been taken away — although he does admit that his e-mail account had been “temporarily” cut off.

Michael Goldfarb, a McCain press aide and Scheunemann ally, said that senior McCain aides were mad at Scheunemann — and wanted to fire him — but he insisted they stopped short of that, and instead simply turned off his campaign communication.

Goldfarb said Scheunemann was in the office on Saturday. He was, however, noticeably missing on election night when top aides to John McCain and Sarah Palin gathered in Phoenix, Arizona.

CNN claimed no fewer than three senior McCain advisors as sources for the original story; if you’re inclined to point the finger at Nicolle Wallace and her husband, Mark (who also worked for the campaign), that still leaves one other leaker; Steve Schmidt would be a prime suspect, assuming the rumors about him being sour on Palin are true. Now that the leakers’ story about Scheunemann being canned has been debunked, why doesn’t CNN burn them and out them?

O’Reilly offered the ‘Cuda half an hour on Monday’s Factor today to answer the charges. Judging from what she says below about having nothing to say, I’m guessing he’ll be turned down. Good news, though: If you need your daily Palin fix going forward, the Atlantic’s most famous blogger is promising to stay on the case, doubtless until the shocking true story of Trig’s matrilineage can finally be told.

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