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Sen. John McCain’s recent hiring of Karl Rove protege Terry “Call me” Nelson didn’t surprise those of us who have never bought into the “straight talker,” “maverick” image that has been manufactured by McCain and his supporters. Now McCain has hired yet another morally-challenged staff member, Jill Hazelbaker, as communications director for his New Hampshire campaign.
Hazelbaker is known for posing as a liberal and stirring up trouble on liberal blogs. She was caught, too, but continued to lie about what she had done. These kinds of campaign dirty tricks, recently popularized by Rove and Karen Hughes, are probably pretty common, but in this case, the selection of both Hazelbaker and Nelson tell more about McCain than anything else.
