This McDaniels Stuff is Pure Teabagger Tacky

I'll leave it to Tengrain to give the run-down, but to make it short and sweet, it kind of is beginning to look like the wild-ass notion of a pro-Chris McDaniels blogger to violate the privacy of Sen. Cochran's invalid wife might have been coordinated with the campaign. I think this is possible based on the reaction the McDaniels campaign is having that they are terribly shocked that circumstantial evidence tying their campaign to the unfortunate intrusion is being exploited by the Cochran folks.

Yep. The McDaniels campaign is the real victim here.

Clearly, I have no sympathy for a right-wing radio neo-confederate bottom feeder who decides to perform a pick-off of a long-time office-holder whose politics shouldn't really even offend him--but the idea that a vulnerable family member was targeted strikes me as going beyond political difference to something like malice. Now, if the point of this was to introduce people to the idea that the Senator was having some kind of personal relationship with one of his staff while his desperately ill spouse was still with us, I'm not sure it's relevant to the job he's doing as senator, and given that he's still a human being with emotional needs, I'm not even sure he'd be begrudged wanting companionship since his wife is truly lost to him by her disability.

I'm not sure what revealing the condition of the wife would add to the story--actually, all of this seems to make Cochran a more sympathetic figure, don't you think? If the McDaniels campaign was exploiting his private, personal life, regardless of what Cochran's relationship was--that's just cheap.

But if this turns out to be a rat-fucking to make the McDaniels' campaign look like heels, I'd have to stand back and admire the work, you know? That sort of thing would make Macchiavelli start up in the coffin and shake off the dirt.