The Wall Street Journal blog describes senior McCain aide, Mark Salter, as "giddy." It quote him as saying:

We feel like we've been saying all week. We're well within the margin or on top in all these battlegrounds.  We got a real good shot at catching the guy."

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So Mark Salter, chief aide to John McCain and coauthor of his best-selling book, flipped out over the public humiliation handed John McCain at the New School by a brave college senior named Jean Rohe, saying that it is "very unlikely any of you will ever posses the one small fraction of the character of John McCain."

This isn't the first time Salter has lost it.  Only a few months ago he got really angry on behalf of John McCain over the documentary 'Why We Fight'.  Salter felt that McCain was portrayed badly and exploded when the documentary was released at Sundance.

TWN has confirmed that the McCain office essentially ignored Jarecki for months, despite calls, a mailed DVD of the film, and various interactions as Jarecki had hoped to involve McCain in the roll-out of the film (figuring that he would like it).

It wasn't until the film became "big" that Salter and the McCain staff paid any attention to the director. They called Charlotte Street Films in a huff, according to one source, demanding a copy of the film. As it turned out, McCain's office had had one already on their shelves, unwatched.

Salter hangs out in comment threads and insults people as a routine matter of course, bristling with the same righteous indignation he showed Rohe.  

Then there's the veracity issue.  Salter denied McCain was offered the VP slot in 2004, which we now know he was offered.  And he's saying McCain never knew Jack Abramoff, which Abramoff claims isn't true (though Abramoff isn't a reliable witness). Salter is also heavily tied into McCain's cover-up of the Abramoff-Norquist matter, which McCain never bothered to fully investigate for fear of upsetting the Republican establishment.  

Ok, let me get this straight.  A dishonest guy who flames people in comment threads for opposing the Iraq War is the the chief of staff for the most prominent Republican Senator in the country.  And we're the angry ones?

Update: Jean Rohe responds.

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I really enjoyed this blog post from Steve Clemons.  It's about McCain's appearance in an excellent documentary called Why We Fight, which I recently saw.  Or rather it's about McCain's dissatisfaction with his appearance in that documentary:

I've seen the film three times now, and Senator McCain comes off as a 21st century Eisenhower in the movie -- the type of potential President who can be a 'big national security president' but not let the military-industrial complex, a term coined first in Dwight Eisenhower's 1961 Farewell Address, run amok.

Salter, who has been a key aide to McCain for many years and has written with McCain Faith of My Fathers and Why Courage Matters, is someone who understands the importance of editing. Not everything makes it into the book, or the film in this case. Salter's demands veer dangerously close to thin-skinned censorship. Not good for any team considering a run at the most admired, feared, pilloried, and lampooned job in the world -- the Presidency of the United States.

TWN has gone to some effort to learn about some of the background on the interview, what was in the larger interview -- tough to get as the director has not wanted to release the material because it would undermine his editorial prerogatives.

TWN has confirmed that the McCain office essentially ignored Jarecki for months, despite calls, a mailed DVD of the film, and various interactions as Jarecki had hoped to involve McCain in the roll-out of the film (figuring that he would like it).

It wasn't until the film became "big" that Salter and the McCain staff paid any attention to the director. They called Charlotte Street Films in a huff, according to one source, demanding a copy of the film. As it turned out, McCain's office had had one already on their shelves, unwatched.

So, while I do not have (yet) the text of the McCain interview, some of the things he said were extremely provocative.

My apologies to both Senator McCain and Eugene Jarecki for sharing some of this, as I admire both, but in my view, Jarecki actually protected McCain's interests in this film -- and Mark Salter is behaving in a surly, oppressive way -- not what Senator McCain deserves.

I'm not one for the 'blame the staffer not the boss', especially since McCain and not just Salter is apparently angry about this.    I guess someone poured petty potion into the McCain office watercooler last week.

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