Newsweek has a look at what went on behind the scenes before and after Palin got the infamous phone call.
The most shocking thing to me was that neither the campaign’s senior leadership (Steve Schmidt, Mark Salter, Rick Davis, et. al.) nor the candidate himself was brought into the loop when the preliminary calls came in. Given how carefully stage-managed Palin’s rollout was, especially when she was meeting foreign heads of state at the United Nations several weeks ago, I would have guessed that a call from the French president would have been run up the flagpole immediately. But as an unidentified senior McCain aide said, it should have raised red flags immediately.
According to one participant, who declined to be named, aides went back and forth venting their frustration. “Does anyone not think it’s strange that the French president would want to talk to a candidate in the final 72 hours of the campaign,” one senior McCain aide demanded, noting that the White House and the National Security Council would likely be involved in any such phone calls. “It’s appalling.” Bigger picture, the episode provides a glimpse at what have been increased tensions between the McCain plane and the Palin plane in the final weeks of the campaign. Aides have pushed back in recent days against stories that all is not well between the two camps, but it appears that may not be exactly true.
As MSNBC political analyst Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out, after taking into account the $150,000 shopping spree and now the prank call on top of that, Palin may well have the worst campaign staff in history.
Icepicks and Nukes 