Top McCain Aide Secretly Fired Last Week For "Trashing" Staffers

CNN reports that senior McCain aide, and chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann was fired a week before Election Day for "trashing" McCain staffers to the press over their handling of Sarah Palin:

Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign policy adviser to John McCain, was fired from the Arizona senator's campaign last week for what one aide called "trashing" the campaign staff, three senior McCain advisers tell CNN.

One of the aides tells CNN that campaign manager Rick Davis fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading "disinformation" about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials.

The New York Times adds that the McCain campaign pegged Bill Kristol as the most likely recipient of Scheunemann's attacks against fellow McCain staffers:

Whatever the permutations, the advisers said they strongly believed that Mr. Scheunemann was disclosing, as one put it, "a constant stream of poison" to William Kristol, the editor of the conservative Weekly Standard and a columnist for The New York Times.

Mr. Kristol, who wrote a column on Oct. 13 calling on Mr. McCain to fire his campaign because it was "close to being out-and-out dysfunctional," said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that the campaign advisers were paranoid. Mr. Kristol has been a strong supporter of Ms. Palin.

"I wasn't writing poison," Mr. Kristol said. He added that "Randy Scheunemann is a friend of mine and I think he did a good job. I talked to him, but I talked to a lot of people at the campaign."

Scheunemann himself disputes that he was fired. Fellow aide Michael Goldfarb tries to back him up, and doesn't really succeed:

However, Goldfarb did concede that Scheunemann's campaign e-mail was cut off, and his blackberry was taken away late Friday. Goldfarb admits that senior McCain aides were mad at Scheunemann, and wanted to fire him, but he insists they stopped short of that, and instead simply turned off his campaign communication.

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Comments

[mafina]

Schuenemann is/was the lobbyist for the country Georgia. All of the bravodo that was going on with Russia and Georgia was all due to this nutjob to shine the light on McCain and foreign policy. All of this fell in their faces. The Georgian president, Saakashvili, even made a statement while there is already a sitting president, that McCain should intervene in the Russian/Georgian conflict. Now that was a set-up of failed policy. Karma reached out to McCain and his croonies. We have to also thank Hillary for helping out McCain in his time of wanting to trump up his foreign policy inexperience.

[harriettubman]

It appears that people ran McCain's campaign and told him when to show up and what to do. What kind of operation is that?

[deeppeace]

Doesn't he look like one of the guys from "Q Eye for the Straight Guy?"

[S1m0n]

Shurely his 15 minutes are LONG up.

[retspan11]

"Scheunemann himself disputes that he was fired."

No, I was not fired. They just bit ch-slapped me a couple of times and then they kicked me out the door. So, I resigned!

[JungleRoses]

McCain's campaign needed meds to balance the personalities!

[Bompa]

AHHHH.... let the eating of the young comence.................totally disfunctional!

[eden4barack08]

Can you believe this fellow was Foreign Policy Adviser?
God really saved us from this team going to power. It would've been WWIII.

[sasidechick]

I know. How scary.

[RexPrimoris]

Too true. A real band of scheming, back-stabbing Neanderthals.

[RJII]

who cares about these losers. let's move on.

[ebanks84]

Moving...............

[SoD1]

If you think Bill was creepy, take a look at his dad Irving Kristol. Google!

[Kiabell04]

Ha, wow.

[stupidisstupiddoes]

Who cares.........Obama won and so they should all just go hide under a rock somewhere in Alaska.

[MSMBlowTorch]

They all deserve each other. I exclude John McCain from that sentence. It is really such a tragedy when a great American hero (who is unfortunately too old, out of fresh ideas and lacking the courage to blaze his own trail - making him ill suited to lead the country) is dragged down by neo-conservatives and the selfishness of lobbyists and turncoats. Those people are EXACTLY what we voted against in this election. Whew...dodged that bullet.

[Querent]

McSame is one of the original NeoCons, and is certainly not a great American. He's a moral pygmy with a giant ego.

[LDnearthesea]

One has to remember that McCain is military royalty, like Bush is monetary nobility.
As Bush's dad bailed him out whenever he was in trouble, so to did Admiral McCain for his son, as he broke rules and flunked classes at Annapolis, crashed aircraft and didn't lose his wings. Karma for McCain might have been the five and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton, but Karma for Bush? Not yet, unless in the next month or so Pelosi grows a spine and puts impeachment on the table. So I don't know if McCain is a great American or not, and his record in the Senate isn't all that hot. He's done more for the rich and powerful and much less for the Americans amongst us in need. He didn't even support the latest legislation to expand the GI Bill, and wasn't present for the vote.

[mnkors]

Palin was McCain's choice. Using Ayers and Right in attacking Obama was McCain's choice.
He is not just lazy and incompetent. - McCain"s choice of Palin was indeed treasonous.

[StephCaster]

Wow, so Krystal is a Palin booster, too. Is there any topic that he one which he has an opinion that his is not completely wrong about? Every prediction about every subject, from war to economics to politics: HE IS ALWAYS PROVEN WRONG. Why is he given any airtime or column inches: even a random text generator would be right more often than Bill Krystal.

[Keith52]

OH YEAH.

This was an organization that was going to be "Ready on day one". Geeeeezzze.