After the Daily Mail’s story on Lake’s leak, DeWit resigned — though in his letter doing so, he said, “I question how effective a United States senator can be when they cannot be trusted to engage in private and confidential conversations.” DeWit must have forgotten Lake’s past as a journalist: clearly she’s always on the hunt for a Pulitzer!

The sorry episode is emblematic of how many obstacles Lake faces to become a US senator. In her failed run for governor, she told McCain Republicans to “get the hell out”: the late senator remains very popular in his home state — and Lake has yet to make serious in-roads in her attempts to win over his fans, who she would need to triumph in the general. Cockburn clocked Lake twice earlier this week at the Sheraton in Nashua, New Hampshire, for Trump’s primary victory party. She was dressed in white, “like the Miss Havisham of VP picks.” Will her political career have a similarly fiery ending?

[Er, I’d say that the AZGOP has razed itself in this episode. Cockburn’s right that Lake hasn’t endeared herself to the party establishment and never should have attacked the late John McCain at all. With that said, though, if you try to buy off an anti-establishment candidate with offers of cash, you hardly have room to complain that your mark was smart enough to record the attempt. One doesn’t even need to be particularly sympathetic to Lake to allow that she may have a point about corruption in her party. — Ed]