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There are, of course, a whole lot of truly baffling things about the Birther movement and its theories. But perhaps one of the most puzzling is this unanswered question: If President Obama really were born in Kenya, why didn't the McCain or Clinton campaigns dig up the evidence and publicize it? Why has that task fallen to the ragtag crew that is the Birthers, led now by Orly Taitz, a dentist/lawyer/real estate agent who got her law degree online and is regularly admonished for having little, if any, idea how to properly file her court papers? Turns out there's an...

I wonder how much there is to this. Filtering out Newsweek's spin (for example, they claim Palin is "fuming" with no source to back up the claim), one thing is obvious -- Coale is willing to go on the record, while the response comes from the standard-issue "anonymous senior McCain aides" that we see in every Palin hit piece.

(snip) Arizona: John McCain's presidential campaign ended in defeat, but it had enough leftover cash to help McCain boost his campaign coffers as he seeks a fifth term in 2010. McCain raised $1.6 million in the second quarter, of which $900,000 came from his 2008 presidential campaign account. McCain also took in $166,000 from McCain Leadership Fund, a joint fundraising committee that shares its proceeds between McCain's campaign committee and his leadership PAC, Country First PAC. (snip)

I am 58 years old and a lifelong Republican. I am writing this letter on behalf of myself and countless other Republicans who feel the same way I do. I am that good person who is tired of sitting back and doing nothing to change our government for the better. I am calling on Sen. John McCain not to run again for the Senate from Arizona. He has served that state as a progressive Republican for a very long time and for the most part, I believe, honorably. There are two problems with that statement — one, that he is...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Senator John McCain issued a statement of support for resigning Alaska Governor Sarah Palin on Saturday, saying she will play a leadership role in the Republican Party and in America. McCain made the comment a day after Palin stunned the political world by announcing she is stepping down. Palin was McCain's vice presidential running mate in last year's U.S. presidential campaign won by Democrat Barack Obama. "I have the greatest respect and affection for Sarah, Todd, and their family. I was deeply honored to have her as my running mate and believe she will continue to...

People like John McCain and others who have been part of the self-absorbed, navel-gazing and corrupt Washington environment for a quarter century no doubt resent someone not "of them." But it is indeed odd when Sarah Palin, a bright, shining light for conservatives remains the prime target of the existing machine, while Mark Sanford and other hypocritical liars are serenaded as getting a raw deal by the very public daughter of a defacto leader of the party.

The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign. At issue is a question that was never resolved following McCain’s loss in November: Who in the McCain campaign was secretly trashing Sarah Palin to the press?

(snip) But I asked one of the senior McCain campaign officials who worked closest with Palin what he thought of the article, by e-mail last night and then this morning over the phone. He e-mailed back immediately, calling the article "absolutely fascinating" and "completely riveting." "While the Palin camp is surely marshaling the torches and pitchforks and baying for blood by now, my hope is that somehow — against the odds -- Palin is able to draw some sort of lesson out of all of this that helps her find a way to exist peacefully in the public space. It...

Meghan McCain hasn't even released her first book, but she's already planning the movie version. "I want Hilary Duff to play me. I think she's really hot - hotter than me - but I'd still want her to play me," Sen. John McCain's daughter confided to us at the Trevor Project's summer gala on Monday night at Capitale. But the young Republican isn't dead set on Duff. "Really, I'd take anyone who's blond," she joked, adding that one actor in particular would certainly be welcome to join the cast. "Bradley Cooper is so hot," McCain swooned. "If he can be...

Alaska's lipstick-wearing pit-bull is a "Little Shop of Horrors." That's how one longtime friend and campaign trail companion of John McCain, the vanquished 2008 GOP presidential nominee, described veep nominee Sarah Palin. In an expansive story in the August edition of Vanity Fair, a slew of senior members of McCain's campaign team told reporter Todd S. Purdum that they suffer a kind of survivor's guilt following the 2008 presidential election.

WASHINGTON — Remember back to September, when Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was a newly minted vice-presidential candidate and she was asked by ABC's Charlie Gibson about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and her split with her running mate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. At the time, she told Gibson: "We'll agree to disagree, but I'm gonna keep pushing that, and I think, eventually, we're all gonna come together on that one." Apparently Palin wasn't persuasive enough. Tuesday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee shot down Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski's effort to open up ANWR to directional drilling. The...

No often means yes in Washington, but we hear from Sen. John McCain's posse that he is not considering a 2012 rerun of his failed 2008 presidential campaign. (W beat him in the 2000 primary, remember.) Word came this week that he is mulling over another try, but a key insider says, "Ridiculous."

(snip) We asked Sen. McCain if he saw Whitman as the future face of the Republican Party and he said "yes." He also mentioned three current governors as the next generation of leaders. Noticeably absent from that list was his former running mate, Sarah Palin.(snip)

New York Times blogger Judith Warner dug into Meghan McCain with gusto, posting a concern-trolling piece about Meg's appearance on the Colbert Report. She writes that she "feels sorry" for Meg: I really have no business feeling sympathy for a wealthy, pretty, well-connected recent Columbia grad who's already been given a political blog by Tina Brown, who's already been paid a reported high six figures to write on the future of the Republican party, and who, despite it all, was foolish enough to go on "The Colbert Report" on Monday night and call herself "a 24-year-old pro-sex woman." I suppose...