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McCain campaign blames recipe ‘debacle’ on ‘low-level unpaid’ staffer.

Yesterday, Huffington Post reported that at least three McCain “family recipes” on a section of the senator’s presidential campaign site were “word-for-word copies of recipes on the Food Network site.” The McCain campaign has already taken down the recipes and is branding the affair a “low-level unpaid staff debacle.” The “web intern” in question has reportedly been “swiftly dealt with.”



42 Responses to “McCain campaign blames recipe ‘debacle’ on ‘low-level unpaid’ staffer.”

  1. Vet says:

    Do all the candidates have recipes on their campaign web sites, or just McSame? That just seems weird to me!


  2. Bobwurst says:

    Way to take responsibility mcain. typical republican fraud.


  3. ralph the wonder llama says:

    And The Party of Personal Repsonsibility™ strikes again!

    Uh, what’s that?

    Oh… you meant other people’s “personal responsibility”. You’re all for that. Gotcha.


  4. RUCerious says:

    Quick, find a flunkie to blame!
    How bout that trollop of a wife of his??


  5. raynman says:

    Whoa, I’d never call my wife a low level unpaid staffer….


  6. tombaker says:

    McMaverick has used his meager supply of campaign funds to lay in a healthy supply of pawns to sacrifice any time things heat up.

    What’s important is that the Press keep eating his weiner, and giving him the Hero Handjob. No sign they’re ever going to stop doing that.


  7. gummitch says:

    I knew they’d scapegoat some more bozo on the staff, the same bozo who got stuck with “Cindy comes off like a complete fembot and we’ve got to humanize her. Go get some recipes!” And since the bozo isn’t allowed to actually talk to Cindy (who probably hasn’t cooked a meal in decades, if ever), he just swiped some on the Internet because he knew, correctly, no one would ever read them on the McCain website. I mean, seriously, who is going to go looking at a Cindy McCain recipe for anything?


  8. helenahandbasket says:

    I want Cindy McCain’s recipe for Humble Pie.


  9. RUCerious says:

    Was there a recipe for trollop pie? Trowelled makeup turnovers?


  10. And Yet... says:

    It’s the “folksiness” aspect of posting recipes, Vet @ #1, kind of like having his daughter & her blogsite for the happenin’ teen POV of Daddy McCain & his campaign.

    Except turns out not quite so folksy when the recipes come part & parcel off the Food Network site. Can we conjecture if the current Mrs. McCain knows any recipes, besides ones for mixing multi-pill cocktails?

    Not from this lame McCain attempt @ bein’ jest folks…


  11. RantingTommy says:

    If it were only recipes that right wing cowards lied about, we’d probably be doing quite well right now.


  12. Vet says:

    There’s only one original recipe on the McCain site: his Recipe for Disaster (Iraq, Economy, Healthcare, etc.).


  13. ConcernedParent says:

    How can people with a straight face honestly say they support mccain, he is a bigger moron than bush. I guess its the low level unpaid staffer who keeps feeding him info about iraq and the economy.


  14. tombaker says:

    John McCain = The Real Elitist


  15. CitizenTwenty says:

    So…
    These are the morons the Clinton’s are frantically claiming Barack Obama has absolutely NO chance of defeating this November?


  16. Max-1 says:

    .

    1 cup McCrap
    1 cup McTruth
    2 cup McDementia
    2 Tsp McWars

    Mix together with McTORTURE
    Poor over your McFish and McDOH-Nuts
    Place into a Mc666 preheated oven
    Cook for a McMinute and
    McServe it fresh to your McLobbyst cronies

    .


  17. tablogloid says:

    McCain should be posting useful information on waterboarding techniques, how to subsist on 100 years of war and how not to rule out nuclear attacks. “Stick to what he knows and stands for.” I say.


  18. fletc3her says:

    Maybe McCain should hire people to work on his Web site rather than allowing unpaid staffers to plagiarize. McCain seems to hold dear to the NeoCon principle that it is always someone else’s fault. Surely we couldn’t expect either the candidate or his wife could to have actually perused the biographical portions of their Web site.

    Should we place the same level of credence in the rest of his Web site? It actually would explain a lot of his healthcare policy, foreign policy, economic policy, etc. were put together not by McCain or even his advisers, bur rather by unpaid interns. Not plagiarized, per se, but certainly copied from the Web sites of the special interests who will run this country should he be elected.


  19. tom says:

    Was it Clinton’s fault?

    No. It was Martha Stewart’s fault; however, she is sending McNumbNuts some of her favorite crow recipes. He’s going to be needing them.


  20. Ike_Skelton says:

    I’m sorry… Why has this become an issue?


  21. CitiDC says:

    You think Karl Rove would have been a little more clear in issuing his orders, from recipes to faith-based “things” after the last debacle.

    Just get me a f-ing faith-based thing. Got it?
    -Karl Rove

    Thank goodness there’s a “low-level, volunteer, unpaid, funny-looking, democrat-supporting” staffer to take the fall.


  22. dbadass says:

    Food Network? Come on! At least they could have jacked epicurious!


  23. Max-1 says:

    #21 Ike_Skelton Said:
    I’m sorry… Why has this become an issue?

    Only in that it highlights the McCompetence of the McCampaign.

    .


  24. celtic cynic says:

    “…and is branding the affair a “low-level unpaid staff debacle.” The staffer in question has reportedly been “swiftly dealt with.”

    No doubt, that low-life, low-level,unpaid staffer is now bitter after the overnight visit to a non-torture re-education center.


  25. tom says:

    “…and is branding the affair a “low-level unpaid staff debacle.” The staffer in question has reportedly been “swiftly dealt with.”

    Waterboarded, no doubt.


  26. misshusseinmolly says:

    Why does a “low level unpaid staffer” have access to website content? What’s to stop anybody who has such access to changing all McCain’s positions, or making modification to other content (of course, since McCain’s positions are constantly in a state of flux, that might not be noticed).

    Granted, presidential campaigns require lots of people and there is lots of work to be done. Still, it would be prudent to make some areas off-limits except to a select few — just as it’s done in the business world.


  27. The Republic of Stupidity says:

    ke_Skelton Says:
    I’m sorry… Why has this become an issue?

    April 15th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
    ________________

    Prolly because it’s just another example of how feckless McShame and his campaign actually are.

    They can’t even post a recipe w/out stealing it, lying about stealing it, then foisting off the blame on somebody else.

    Do you really want such blatantly incompetent, dishonest people w/ their finger on the button, so to speak?

    Or waiting for that 3:00 am phone call?


  28. ralph the wonder llama says:

    Vet Says:
    There’s only one original recipe on the McCain site: his Recipe for Disaster (Iraq, Economy, Healthcare, etc.).

    Oh, if only that were true, Vet. Unfortunately, McCain has even plagiarized that recipe, copying it word-for-word from the BushCo corporate mission statement.


  29. JMOHR says:

    Yes, such a wonderful political discourse. If this had been Gore, Kerry, Clinton or Obama; we know that the Republicans and press would be talking about how immoral and dishonest the candidate was by trying to promote an untrue image by posting false family recipes. Face it, you know that they were just trying to boost McCains image just as having him grill out for the press. You know that the truth did not matter, just filling the web with some good recipes.


  30. L. Hussein Annie says:

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

    My bet? That pampered little rich girl has never ever boiled a pot of pasta in her entire LIFE.

    If you can afford to have EIGHT houses, wear real Prada and exquisite real pearls, you don’t boil yer own water. Ever.


  31. Art says:

    Wouldn’t it be nice to blame all gaffes on the handy “low-level unpaid staff”. Why didn’t Sen. Obama think of that!!
    .

    I hope the “intern” who was “swiftly dealt with” if finally done washing all those pots and pans.


  32. pbg says:

    Swiftly dealt with?
    Roasted on a spit over open coals?


  33. zuch says:

    McCain family recipe:

    Take a few bad apples….

    ;-)

    Cheers,


  34. Shayne says:

    If it had been Michelle Obama Hillary would already have a negative commercial airing about it. But she’s such good “friends” with McCain she’ll let it slide.


  35. RUCerious says:

    Art, I wonder if the swiftly dealt with low level staffer wants a job with the Obama campaign.
    Think of all the inside dirt he could bring to light.

    Oh, that’s right, never mind, Obama doesn’t sling mud. Yet.


  36. WaltTheMan says:

    Geez,
    The recipes are gone! I was searching for the recipes for hot dogs, oatmeal and boiled rice.


  37. WaltTheMan says:

    The low-level unpaid staffer was boiled in oil. That’s the missing 8th recipe.


  38. BushHater says:

    John personally beat the shit out of her.


  39. zathrus says:

    I just keep hearing about his Recipe For Disaster, which is a word for word copy of Bush’s…


  40. katy says:

    i hear those recipes weren’t of the usual family casserole and meatloaf type…

    some kind of elitist, high-brow entree…


  41. Bluestocking says:

    Yeah…riiiight. I find it extremely hard to believe that an unpaid intern would really have been granted the level of unsupervised independence and initiative that this suggests he or she had and would have needed to have in order to carry this out without anyone in the campaign spotting it or knowing about it beforehand. I can’t think of any companies or organizations — certainly, not any responsible ones — which would put a wet-behind-the-ears intern in charge of a project without expecting said intern to submit his or her work for approval, and especially not if it was a project which would be made available for public consumption (in this case, not just figuratively but also literally). What seems much more plausible is that someone higher up told the intern to do this assuming that nobody would pay enough attention to notice, and then metaphorically threw him or her under the bus when someone actually did notice and called them on it.

    Funny…aren’t the Republicans the ones who are always pontificating about the importance of taking personal responsibility?


  42. hauksdottir says:

    Even those of us who can’t cook or don’t cook (I’m disabled) usually have some family recipes lying around from friends and relatives that did cook well or from our own past. That intern could have pulled in something from his/her own mother if desperate, but that would have required typing in the proper format. It is soooooo much easier to steal (a couple clicks) than to actually type or use an OCR reader.

    Even if you are unpaid, there is still a sense of responsibility and personal pride in the quality of your work, or why do it?

    The entire idea of Cindy as a housewife or John hovering over a bbq is silly. They are not “just folks” and no amount of word-mongering by the press is going to make us believe that they even know how to mix their own drinks.

    Somebody in PR ordered this gag, and like most comedic stunts, it fell flat. The plagiarist needed to be brought up short, but the person who ordered it, without talking to the candidate or his wife about acquiring the recipes, needs a lesson in resource management as well.

    :pffffft:



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