Hiring some valuable skills

John McCain continues to surround himself with people that have experience in specific areas that he wants to be better at. One of the newer additions to Team McCain is Ralph Reed. If that name sounds familiar, that would be the guy from the Jack Abramoff scandal. That would be the scandal that McCain once claimed he led an investigation into. It seems that McCain’s investigation was really about scouting for dirty talent that was able to avoid prison (other Republican operatives in that scandal were imprisoned for their crimes). The Republican operative Reed brings lots of valuable experience to John: money laundering, fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials. Just what the GOP needs – even more of their worst traits.

In the advertising department, Jackson Brown is suing John McCain’s campaign because neither McCain nor the RNC obtained the rights to use his song, “Running on Empty”, in their campaign ads. Apparently they feel they are above paying royalties when using copyrighted material for their gain. The suit also alleges that the commercial falsely suggests Browne endorsed McCain. I guess McCain’s jealousy over Obama’s popularity is causing him to manufacture celebrity endorsements to compensate.

Also on board the ironically-named “straight talk express”, Jerome Corsi. That would be the Republican operative who was listed as the author of the infamous “swift boat” book. That would be the Rovian slander against John Kerry. Corsi was completely discredited, as the book was riddled with errors and outright fabrications in its mission of venomously slandering the war record of a bona-fide American war hero. Now Corsi’s contribution to Team McCain is another book, this time slandering Barak Obama, and the initial reviews have been just what you’d expect:

"Jerome Corsi is a discredited liar who is peddling another piece of garbage in order to continue the Bush-Cheney politics he helped perpetuate four years ago"
"His is one of what will likely be many lie-filled books rushed to print this election cycle that are cobbled together from debunked internet sources to make money and advance a partisan agenda.”

Of course, McCain is delighted to inherit the GOP propaganda machine and the Republicans cannot shovel money fast enough to such a valuable operative like Corsi. Dirty politics as usual.