You slackers have never worked a day in your life!

OK, for those of you who don't know about the whole John McCain New School Graduation speech/Jean Rhoe smackdown, here's a quick summary: McCain gets invited to speak at the very progressive New School, and plans to give the same speech as he gave at other graduations. Jean Rhoe, who is scheduled to speak before him, chucks her previously prepared remarks and, looking at the text of the speech McCain will give, rewrites her speech, attacking McCain and his speech before he even gives it. The progressive blogosphere makes a hero out of her. For some more info, see her "why I did it" explanation on Huffingtonpost.com.

Now apparently, McCain's chief of staff has replied to her and her classmates. The whole thing can be found here. This is the conclusion of his post:

Should you grow up and ever get down to the hard business of making a living and finding a purpose for your lives beyond self-indulgence some of you might then know a happiness far more sublime than the fleeting pleasure of living in an echo chamber. And if you are that fortunate, you might look back on the day of your graduation and your discourtesy to a good and honest man with a little shame and the certain knowledge that it very unlikely any of you will ever posses the one small fraction of the character of John McCain.

Mark Salter

Whoa! Way to ingratiate yourself there. Well, it's always been my life's ambition to "posses the[sic] one small fraction of the character of John McCain", but I guess since that is "very unlikely", I'll have to settle for possesing the one small fraction of the character of Wayne Allard (R-CO) or somebody else. Of course, I'm not a New School graduate, so maybe someday I can attain a small smidgen of McCain's character. So, was this some deceitful operative posing as McCain's chief of staff, or was it really "maverick" McCain's chief of staff lettin' one rip? Huffingtonpost has front-paged it, so their credibility is on the line.

It's too bad about McCain. He does occasionally fail to toe the line on the Republican talking points, but when it comes down to anything major, he puckers up to kiss King George's ass like the rest of them. This despite the savaging Karl Rove unleashed on him in the primaries before the 2000 election. And watching him suck up to the puritanical fanatics who control the Republican party is so sad. "Staight Talk" maverick my ass.