Mark McKinnon

Rich, Fisked

Let's have some fun deconstructing Frank Rich's NY Times column of today. The gist of The Grand Old White Party Confronts Obama is that it will be nearly impossible for McCain to defeat Obama because the Arizona senator reflects the politics of an almost all-white GOP in the age of a changing America.

Rich begins by mocking the the "collection of sallow-faced old Beltway pols" who flanked McCain during his victory speech on the night of the Potomac Primaries. Adding insult to injury, Rich replays Letterman's line about the GOP presidential hopefuls looking like “guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club.”

Who Is Mark McKinnon To Lecture Limbaugh About Party Loyalty?

In Tuesday’s Washington Post, reporter Howard Kurtz focused on how talk show hosts from Limbaugh to Laura (and ahem, Levin!), from Hannity to Hewitt, are opposing John McCain on air. One McCain adviser, a Democrat signed up by George W. Bush in the 2000 campaign, lectured Limbaugh on party loyalty:

Mark McKinnon, a top McCain adviser, called the criticism from Limbaugh and the other hosts "frustrating," saying: "Our question is, 'Isn't it better to get behind a Republican you may disagree with from time to time than work for an outcome that puts a Democrat in the White House with whom you will disagree all of the time?'

But in the latest edition of Newsweek, reporter Richard Wolffe reports that inside the McCain campaign, McKinnon was making pledges not to make any ads disparaging Barack Obama. And he’s lecturing Limbaugh? The article ends: