I think Robert Draper is a better blogger than journalist. Check out this passage from his GQ blog, which has none of the dull finish of his NYT piece on the McCain campaign, but a so much more interesting bite (h/t WT).
I’ve heard from one well-placed source that McCain has snubbed [Palin] on one long bus ride aboard the Straight Talk Express, to the embarrassment of those sitting nearby. It has surely been implied to the governor that she should be eternally grateful to have been plucked from obscurity. And yet the high water mark of John McCain’s campaign for the presidency unquestionably began on September 3, when Palin gave her nomination speech—and ended precisely twelve days later, when McCain went off-script—I have that on the authority of the person who participated in the writing of said script—and told an audience that he still believed the fundamentals of the economy were strong.
McCain being an asshole to Palin? Check. McCain demanding her eternal gratitude for the huge favor he did her by turning her into a national laughingstock? Check. McCain going off-message when he made one of the biggest fuck-ups of this campaign? Check.
Three sentences, and each of them offering a nugget as delightful as the best line from his NYT piece.
“For better or for worse, our campaign has been fought from tactic to tactic,” one senior adviser glumly acknowledged to me in early October, just after Schmidt received authorization from McCain to unleash a new wave of ads attacking Obama’s character.
That said, Draper seems to think Palin got a bum rap with this deal. Me? I think McCain and Palin deserve each other.