A Vanity Fair piece in which former staffers of Arizona Sen. John McCain’s failed 2008 Presidential campaign rip into former GOP Vice Presidential running mate Gov. Sarah Palin has accentuated often bitter Republican party divisions — exposing personal resentments and some of the ideological dividing lines within today’s convalescing GOP.
According to The Politico, it is now all out verbal war among some in the GOP over this piece — with some prominent Republicans defending Palin and others the comments by McCain former staffers that appeared in the magazine. Is this Family Feud or signs of an ongoing civil war that could reach its peak in 2012?
A hard-hitting piece on Sarah Palin in the new Vanity Fair has touched off a blistering exchange of insults among high-profile Republicans over last year’s GOP ticket – tearing open fresh wounds about leaks surrounding Palin and revealing for the first time some of the internal wars that paralyzed the campaign in its final days.
Rival factions close to the McCain campaign have been feuding since last fall over Palin, usually waging the battle in the shadows with anonymous quotes. Now, however, some of the most well-known names in Republican politics are going on-the-record with personal attacks and blame-casting.
Who needs to watch Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reill set up screamfests with people of both parties, when you can watch it all in one place — in the GOP? To wit:
William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard and at times an informal adviser to Sen. John McCain, touched off the latest back-and-forth Tuesday morning with a post on his magazine’s blog criticizing the Todd Purdum-authored Palin story and pointing a finger at Steve Schmidt, McCain’s campaign manager.
Kristol cited a passage in Purdum’s piece in which “some top aides” were said to worry about the Alaska governor’s “mental state” and the prospect that the Alaska governor may be suffering from post-partum depression following the birth of her son Trig. “In fact, one aide who raised this possibility in the course of trashing Palin’s mental state to others in the McCain-Palin campaign was Steve Schmidt,” Kristol wrote.
Asked about the accusation, Schmidt fired back in an e-mail: “I’m sure John McCain would be president today if only Bill Kristol had been in charge of the campaign.”
“After all, his management of [former Vice President] Dan Quayle’s public image as his chief of staff is still something that takes your breath away,” Schmidt continued. “His attack on me is categorically false.”
Asked directly in a telephone interview if he brought up the prospect of Palin suffering from post-partum depression, Schmidt said: “His allegation that I was defaming Palin by alleging post-partum depression at the campaign headquarters is categorically untrue. In fact, I think it rises to the level of a slander because it’s about the worst thing you can say about somebody who does what I do for a living.”
But the Politico has someone supporting Schmidt…and then more of Schmidt’s view. And then more of Kristol (etc…) In fact this piece is so fiery, peppery, packed quotes from all involved that are filled with such anger, resentment, and blame-pointing — including some specifics — that you need to go to the link and read the entire piece yourself. More quotes will only take it out of context.
Is this merely a little family argument, as the Politico suggests? Or does it portend a battle royal for 2012 with Palin the darling of talk radio political culture conservatives and some other candidates attempting to cast a wider net for the partly by trying to win new voters over, rather than dress-down those who aren’t conservative true believers?
We link…you decide…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.